Sonder Union

Brad Miller is a solo practice attorney and franchise law specialist who formerly co-hosted Walking a Spiritual Path with Jason Medford. He started his firm out of necessity after graduating law school during the housing crisis, and has since shaped it — along with a move to rural hill country — into something that fits his life rather than the other way around. Owen and Brad talk about why the le...

Amy lost Roy two weeks before we recorded this. Roy was her cat for seventeen years—what she calls her "heart animal." If you've ever had one, you know what that means. If you haven't, you probably think we're being dramatic about a pet, and you can go to hell. We talked about grief, but also about mortality and meaning and why our culture is so fucking terrible at dealing with death. Amy's been w...

In this wide-ranging conversation, Owen sits down with fellow "reluctant lawyer" Pat Patino to explore the tension between intensity and minimalism, the challenge of getting past the 90% threshold, and what it means to live an impractical life. Topics discussed: The realization that intensity might be a feature, not a bug Why both hosts stopped identifying closely with being attorneys The Chinese...

Have you ever noticed that when leaders of organizations talk very loudly about making change, almost nothing meaningful changes? Anastasia Boyko is a rare true changemaker and she was gracious enough to take a beat and talk with us about a whole bevy of topics from her unique vantage. Anastasia was born in Soviet Ukraine, made her way to Utah with her mother before the wall fell, worked her way t...

Tony Albrecht joins us for a master class in trolling me on TSwift before we inevitably jump into a long discourse on creativity and the lunacy of creatives. No more need be said. Enjoy. Find Tony on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-albrecht/ Visit CONTENDER: https://contenderllc.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonu...

Robb Gilbear messaged me several weeks back and remarked how we were living on opposite ends of the child-rearing spectrum. I knew immediately that I had to have him join Sonder Union to talk through all the feels. I can't tell you how soothing it is speaking with Robb, although I suspect you'll get a sense from listening to this episode. You can find Robb here: LinkedIn GrowthHabit Die Before The...

Some episodes of Sonder Union are a little serious and dour. I love those episodes, but this one certainly isn't one of them. Chris Sellers joins me, in his Trilby, to talk all about creativity, the way we torture and forgive ourselves, and the way we interact with the stories other people want to write for us. Check out Chris at all of these places: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/c-s-s...

Murray Gottheil joins Sonder Union to discuss how to think about work, retirement, and surviving a career in law. One of the most interesting figures in the legal corner of LinkedIn, Murray is as funny as he is opinionated. In other words, my kinda people. You can find Murray here: https://www.murraygottheil.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/murray-gottheil-58787b1/ This is a public episode. If you...

Kyle Holden joins Sonder Union for a wide-ranging discussion between two folks with ADHD. This means there are many threads that seem incoherent that do get pulled together after what seems like too long a time. One of the things I love about the ADHD brain is that we can see connections between and among things that get incorporated in unpredictable ways in stories and what appear to be meanderin...

If you know me at all, you know that I have a book problem. I love them. I collect them. I study them -- and I don't mean the words in them (though I do that too), but the physical objects. You won't see me with a Kindle any time soon. In this episode of Sonder Union, Toni Serofin joins us to talk about books, music, and art. It was a thoroughly enjoyable conversation with an absolutely fa...

After a bit of a paternity leave of sorts, we're back with the one and only Graeme Johnson. Graeme is hands-down one of the more erudite folks in the legal community and I love talking with him, because I always come away learning something interesting and new. You can find Graeme on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnstongraeme/ And you should check out what he's up to at http...

John Glicksman joins Sonder Union for this episode, in which I pepper him with questions about parenthood, music, confidence, and humility. He asked me if there was anything he needed to do to prepare and I said "Nope!" He was an absolute sport as I steered the conversation places that he had no warning of. John is one of the smartest and most humble people I know and he brings that ener...

Making this podcast is such a joy: I just get to spend time picking amazing people's thoughts. This episode features Charley Mann, one of the nicest and most quietly insightful people I know. Charley is a law firm business coach and he's damned good at that. I'm not super interested in that, though, for the purposes of Sonder Union. So we talk about his background in acting, the nature...

What's it like to talk with a friend for the first time in 23 years? Not because you had a falling out, but simply because life happens. Will it be like you just saw each other, or will it be awkward and weird? Luka Poulton was kind enough to run this experiment with me and we have some answers to that riddle, at least for us. YMMV. Luka and I had a pretty wide-ranging discussion and I'm p...

What a treat it is to speak with Dr. Theodora Ziamou! Theodora is a behavioral psychologist, and as you might expect, a keen observer of people. We have a wide-ranging conversation touching on language, culture, and change. You can find Theodora on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drtheodoraziamou/ If you're interested in helping your customers make better decisions, you might want t...

What do you talk about when you've got a guy who's won one of the world's toughest races on your podcast? Well, raising children, writing and reading books, and, yes, why doing hard things isn't about the hard thing, really, so much as about breaking bread with our inner animal. Paul Watkins is a delightful guest: full of expected and unexpected wisdom and a wonderful sense of humo...

Charley Mann has "coffeesodes" on his podcast – short narrative episodes in between his interviews. I guess this is similar, except not really. Helpful description, I know. If you don't want to hear a story about miscarriage or pregnancy loss, I would skip this one. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, vis...

Sarah Ennor and I both have ADHD. Although we didn't intend to talk almost exclusively about ADHD, it just kinda happened ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It was an absolute blast trading stories with Sarah and I suspect you'll find it pretty interesting too. Sarah has played Aussie Rules Football for Team Canada, worked as a badass lawyer for a large bank, opened her own business, and has made it a mission to...

Happy New Year and welcome back to Sonder Union. We have a treat in this episode, with Lenor Marquis Segal returning to discuss why losing things is bad, the impact of Covid, and, of course, writing. Lenor was a guest on Episode 3, The Irish Goodbye. She was a tremendous guest, and I was a tremendously shitty host. I kept cutting out during recording, leaving her hanging in the room, and then mana...

We're rounding out 2023 with our 10th episode, something of an achievement for a podcast. Most don't make it this far, but my own dumb obstinance has Sonder Union rolling! Episode Ten is something a bit different: there's no guest today, so you're stuck only with your humble host, who shares some reflections on where Sonder Union has been and where it hopes to go in 2024. Please ra...

Sonal Soveni missed having the type of creative community she felt at home in, so, like the badass she is, she just went ahead and decided to create it. In this episode of Sonder Union, we explore creativity, what happens when creativity is suppressed, how our families give context to our pursuits (even if we might not recognize it), and the importance of having creative spaces that make explorati...

Several weeks ago, I felt an acute case of loneliness, a disconnect from the world that left me pretty floored. I nearly sat down and recorded a solo episode of Sonder Union exploring this theme, but decided that might be interesting, but it wasn't a Sonder Union episode. Instead, I texted my guest for this episode, one of my oldest and best friends, Rob Lisy. Although the premise of the podca...

I'm so pleased to have Keith King on for this episode of Sonder Union. Keith is a fellow traveler on the path toward more fulfilling and creative work. We discuss music, creativity, resistance. Keith and his wife, Laura, have an amazing podcast titled "In Residence" and I recommend it very, very highly. If you like our discussion about getting through creative blockages, doing The Th...

What a joy it was to sit down with Hassan Ali to tape this episode of Sonder Union. Hassan is a very smart real estate developer in Chicago. He's also written for The Onion & the A.V. Club, was the person behind the marketing voice of Potbelly Sandwiches, is standing up a marketing business focused on LinkedIn, and is generally one of the nicest guys I've had the pleasure of speaking w...

We're back with another episode of Sonder Union, where we explore people's stories just because people are fascinating. In this episode, we're joined by Chris Valdheims, who had a fantastic podcast of his own, Hypermemoir. Go find it right now on your podcast platform and hit subscribe. Chris has been on a journey of self-discovery for most of his adult life. And, yes, all of us are on...