That's What I Meant to Say

What happens when something good—work, health, family, success—becomes the foundation upon which everything else depends? Paul Karos knows firsthand. After rising to the top of the Wall Street world, his outward success concealed a life that was quietly collapsing. Drawing from his book, The Ultimate Building Project: The Human Person , Paul explains the Orthodox Christian vision of the human pers...

Artist, poet, photographer, and philosopher Steven Seidenberg joins James Newcomb for a conversation about representation—how we translate reality into image, language, and art, and what gets lost in the process. Steven explains why photography is never simply a mirror of the world, why abandoned buildings and vacant spaces can carry more emotional force than conventional beauty, and how his work...

https://youtu.be/VOVcj1DjBJ8?si=5WqF0tTNBZtgPslr  What if God exists—but the version of God you believe in doesn’t? Author Todd Isberner joins James to explore how culture, upbringing, personal desires, religious experience, and suffering shape our understanding of God. They examine the competing images of a distant God, an endlessly permissive God, and an angry God waiting to punish us—and a...

What makes a belief true? Tracy Nicholas has spent decades exploring folklore, magick, ritual, and the psychology of belief. Although we approach spirituality from different traditions, we discover there is a good deal of common ground in the power of story, symbolism, ritual, and attention. To sum up: The world is far more mysterious than modernity allows us to believe. Resources mentioned: Tracy...

Humor can get a laugh, but used well, it can do something much more valuable: get people to listen. Ray Engan, founder of Leadership Through Laughter, joins James to talk about what years of stand-up comedy taught him about sales, leadership, trust, and human connection. From surviving biker bars to approaching strangers at networking events, Ray explains why curiosity, relevance, and specificity...

Technology is supposed to make work easier—until it becomes the thing everyone is fighting. IT consultant Tim Maile joins James to talk about the surprisingly human side of technology: bad systems, over-automation, security blind spots, and the communication problems hiding behind technical failures. Tim shares a corporate IT horror story that turned a one-week contract into nine months, explains...

In this episode, we sit down with Kevin Strauss, founder of Uchi, an app built around the Japanese concept of "uchi" — your inner circle, the people who truly have your back. Kevin explains why real connection is a basic human need (not just a craving), how unmet connection registers in our brains as pain, and why so many of us turn to unhealthy behaviors to fill that gap. We dig into what makes U...

James Newcomb sits down with ghostwriter and author coach Sean Mabry to unpack what it really takes to turn someone's life experience into a compelling book. Sean shares how a childhood moment sparked his love of writing, his journey through content marketing and copywriting for Fit Body Boot Camp CEO Bedros Keuilian, and the mindset shift that changed how he views marketing entirely. They dig int...

Most businesses break employment law not out of malice, but because they simply don't know what they don't know — and by the time they find out, it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, or worse, jail time. In this episode, host James Newcomb sits down with Diane Faulkner, an HR consultant and self-described "HR threat detective," to unpack the hidden mistakes that get employers in serious le...

Chaos isn't always loud. Sometimes it hides behind busy schedules, scattered priorities, and lives that seem successful on the surface but lack harmony underneath. Joseph Pedroza knows what it means to live in chaos. After a childhood marked by abuse, gang involvement, addiction, prison, and a near-fatal stabbing, he experienced a radical transformation that reshaped not only his faith, but his un...

Jerry Hey has spent more than five decades making great records sound even better. In this conversation, the Grammy-winning trumpeter and horn arranger traces his path from a musical childhood in Dixon, Illinois, through Indiana University, the Honolulu music scene, Seawind, and the Los Angeles recording studios. Jerry recalls working with Quincy Jones, David Foster, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Mi...

This conversation with Stephan Kinsella was recorded in 2022, but the principles behind it are timeless. The tools change. The technology changes. The means of copying, distributing, remixing, and monetizing creative work change. But the central question remains: can an idea really be owned in the same way a pencil, house, instrument, or piece of land can be owned? Stephan is a retired patent atto...

"On the field... From Madison, Wisconsin... The Madison Scouts!" Back in the 1980s and 90s, when those words were spoken through the PA system at the local drum corps competition, the crowd knew exactly what was going to happen. Precision. Discipline. Young males crossing the threshold into manhood in real time. And that sound... Hitting you as though you’re running into a brick wall at 70 miles a...

What if Christianity is not primarily a moral code, a private belief system, or a set of religious customs, but a way of seeing reality? In this episode, Dr. Zachary Porcu joins the podcast to discuss his book Journey to Reality: Sacramental Life in a Secular Age . The conversation begins with the origin of the book, which grew out of Zac’s work teaching theology to students who often knew the bas...

Composer Daniel Elder found himself at the center of intense public backlash after an Instagram post made during the unrest following George Floyd’s death. In this written interview, presented with AI-synthesized voices, Daniel gives his account of what happened, why he chose not to apologize, how institutions responded under pressure, and what the experience revealed about mob mentality, artistic...

What does it mean to ask about “the role of history”? Is history its own entity with agency of its own, or is there more to the story? In this episode, we reflect on how the past shapes the present through context, inheritance, memory, precedent, and constraint.

https://jamesdnewcomb.com/jeannie “The Orthodox mind, the mind of the Church, is the mind of Christ.” We welcome biblical scholar and author Dr. Jeannie Constantinou for a sweeping, heartfelt, and clarifying conversation on phronema —the ancient Christian mindset preserved in the Orthodox Church. I open the conversation by sharing my own journey of transitioning into Orthodoxy, reflecting on how W...

Honest speech requires the freedom to be wrong. In this episode, I reflect on students afraid to speak, a mob moment from my trumpet podcast days, and the difference between correction and public shaming. When decent people are afraid to speak, fools fill the silence. I’m James Newcomb, and that’s what I meant to say. Get full access to James D. Newcomb at jamesdnewcomb.substack.com/subscribe

I was recently asked by Deacon Stephen Wehr at my home parish (St. Mary’s Greek Orthodox Church in Minneapolis) for a personal conversation about, well, me. Steve asked me about my upbringing, my military service, my musical endeavors, marriage, faith, and how I discovered and was drawn to Orthodox Christianity. This is not some tidy conversion story, but a life shaped by vocation, risk, patience,...

Why do people cling to beliefs even after they’ve been proven wrong? In this episode, we explore what happens in the mind when deeply held beliefs are challenged, why facts alone often fail to persuade, and how emotional investment shapes what we accept as true. Drawing on decades of psychological research, this conversation unpacks why corrections sometimes backfire, why empathy matters more than...

Why do intelligent, well-informed people so often talk past one another? Why do we cling to our beliefs, even when presented with overwhelming evidence that on the surface disproves them? In this episode, we explore a phenomenon known as “Confirmation Bias.” This is the tendency to favor information, even blatantly false, that supports what we already believe to be true. Drawing on research from H...

The American Founders are often remembered as champions of reason, restraint, and religious liberty. But beneath that story lies a less examined assumption: a deep certainty about which forms of belief were acceptable—and which were dangerous. In this episode, we revisit some of the important documents of that era, namely Federalist Nos. 10 and 51 and explore how fear of factions, combined with cu...

Most Americans assume the founders intended a rigid wall between church and state. In fact, many Christians even consider it a great blessing. Yet the historical record tells a more complicated and far more interesting story. In this episode, we examine how the Establishment Clause was originally understood, why the founders opposed state churches while wholesale embracing religion in public life,...

In this episode, we explore how the theology of the New England Puritans shaped a distinctive political imagination—one that continues to echo through American culture, governance, and foreign policy. Drawing on historian Perry Miller’s concept of an “errand into the wilderness,” the conversation reframes the Puritans not as caricatured zealots, but as idealists who believed they were participatin...

This episode presents a dialogue exploring how religious rhetoric functioned as a form of political power in colonial New England. The conversation examines how Puritan clergy used biblical typology to justify political authority, shape collective identity, and frame historical events as divine confirmation. It also highlights dissenting voices such as Robert Cushman and Roger Williams, whose chal...