The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast

The holidays promise magic but deliver a lengthy to-do list the length as well. In this conversation, cognitive psychotherapist and TODAY Show contributor Niro Feliciano helps us name the real culprit behind our December depletion: comparison culture, commercial pressure, and the quiet belief that we’re failing if we’re not doing everything. Drawing from her 31-day guide All Is Calmish, Niro gives...

Most of us are living with an internal compass we never learned to read. In this riveting conversation, bestselling author Robert Glazer reveals why so many capable, well-intentioned adults feel misaligned, exhausted, or confused. It is because they are making the biggest decisions of life (work, partnership, community) without ever naming the values that drive them. Robert explains why only 1–2%...

In her second visit to The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast, bestselling author and mama of ten Abbie Halberstadt (M Is for Mama, Hard Is Not the Same Thing as Bad, You Bet Your Stretch Marks) sits down with Ginny to lovingly but firmly push back against a culture that treats children as an interruption instead of a reward. Abbie shares what it was like to have 10 children in 14 years—including two sets...

What if the behavior problems you’re seeing in your child are really exhaustion from a tiny jaw and a blocked airway? In this eye-opening conversation, host Ginny Yurich welcomes back one of her all-time favorite guests, airway-focused dentist Dr. Kalli Halle, to explain why so many kids are snoring, teeth grinding, bedwetting, and struggling with anxiety, ADHD- and ODD-like symptoms because they...

Beloved author and illustrator Sharon Lovejoy returns for her third appearance on The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast, and this conversation feels like stepping into the kind of childhood we all hope to create. Sharon and Ginny explore why the garden remains one of the most powerful places to raise a child and a parent. From babies whose tiny hands brush over mint leaves to 96-year-olds planting their...

Motherhood often feels like a season of losing yourself, but what if it’s actually the most profound season of becoming? In this heart-deep conversation, Ginny welcomes back one of the podcast’s most beloved guests, Leah Boden, for her third appearance. Together they explore what Charlotte Mason called the “mind gallery”—the inner storehouse of beauty, story, memory, art, and truth that sustains u...

When our kids step into the digital world, most of us feel like we’re handing them car keys without ever having learned to drive ourselves. In this episode, Danish parenting expert and author Jessica Joelle Alexander returns to share the tool she created when her own daughter started asking for a phone: Raising Digital Citizens conversation cards. Drawing on Denmark’s world-leading approach to hap...

Choosing the Hard Things on Purpose brings former NFL fullback Heath Evans and weight-loss hero Chrissy Evans into a raw and hope-filled conversation about discipline, surrender, and the kind of transformation that lasts. Together with Ginny, they walk through the rock-bottom moments that reshaped their lives—false accusations, public collapse, a weight-loss surgery that didn’t work, and years of...

What if the most countercultural thing you could do right now was say yes to family? In this deeply affirming conversation, Ginny Yurich sits down with Sarah Gabel Seifert, co-founder and president of EveryLife, to explore why children are gifts and how slowing down to raise them can become the most life-giving self-care of all. Sarah and Ginny invite listeners to rethink modern scripts about care...

When bestselling author and IF:Gathering founder Jennie Allen sits down with Ginny, they go straight at the question nearly everyone’s asking but few will admit out loud: How do I make friends—real ones—right now? Jennie unpacks why today’s parents are living through a “fast loneliness” era how mixed-age friendships grow resilient kids, and why neediness isn’t a flaw but instead, it’s the doorway...

When pediatric OT Adele Hopper and early childhood educator Jess Warner stepped outside the clinic and classroom, everything changed—regulation improved, anxiety eased, and play exploded into real learning. In this powerful, hope-filled conversation from Australia, we trace children’s journeys from cautious observers to joyful risk-takers, and the way true, child-led play builds executive function...

When we protect the pace of childhood, everyone in the family heals. In this illuminating conversation, Dr. Natasha Beck—also known as Dr. Organic Mommy—shares how slowing down, simplifying, and removing hidden toxins from our homes can transform not just our kids’ health, but our own. Diagnosed as a child with ADHD and dyslexia, Dr. Beck eventually uncovered how diet, environment, and overstimula...

Erin Loechner is back for her third visit with a deeply freeing message for parents: you can step off the conveyor belt and still raise kids who thrive. From TV sets and Disney stages to off-grid cabins and a garden full of slow surprises, Erin has lived a dozen lives—and let many of them go. She and Ginny explore how seasons change slowly, why “success” can be lovingly rejiggered, and how refusin...

What does it really take to raise strong, confident, and grounded kids in today’s digital world? In this deeply affirming and practical conversation, New York Times bestselling author and family therapist Michael Gurian joins Ginny Yurich to share timeless wisdom backed by neuroscience and 35 years of experience. Gurian explains why children—especially boys—are struggling more than ever, and how t...

In this conversation, Andy Felton invites us to see our bodies as organic gardens—living ecosystems that flourish or falter based on what we plant in them. He makes a clear, compassionate case that our modern, convenience-first food culture has left many of us undernourished and overwhelmed, not because we lack willpower but because we’ve been trained to outsource the most human act we do: cooking...

Stories are how our brains make sense of the world—and in this conversation, Ginny sits down with friend and master storyteller Paul Hastings (host of Compelled) to explore why narrative cuts through noise and sticks. From his Thai–Ozark family roots to thousands of hours crafting immersive, sound-rich episodes, Paul explains the simple science of attention (“your brain wakes up when a story begin...

In his fifth (and most urgent) visit, executive function specialist Mike McLeod says the quiet part out loud: today’s youth mental-health crisis is not a child problem—it’s an adult-built environment. He previews his forthcoming Executive Function Playbook and companion workbook, laying out why executive functions—not grades, apps, or endless “emotional curriculum”—are the strongest predictors of...

Glen Henry went from avoiding fatherhood to embracing it with radical presence, creativity, and faith—and he tells the whole story here. From hip-hop tours to a 24-foot RV with four kids and a tornado warning, Glen shares how “fathering yourself first” rewires your inner voice and spills into patient, playful leadership at home. We talk rough-and-tumble play that teaches limits, saying yes to your...

When employers say “26 is the new 18,” what they’re really noticing is Tim Elmore’s Peter Pan paradox in action: the age of authority is dropping while the age of maturity is rising. In this energizing conversation, Tim and Ginny decode Gen Z’s “magic and tragic”—their native fluency with tech and AI alongside lagging people skills—and offer hopeful, practical ways to coach rather than complain. Y...

In this powerful and timely conversation, 1000 Hours Outside founder Ginny Yurich sits down with Russell York, CEO of Cosmo, a leading kids smartwatch company, to explore one of the most pressing issues of modern childhood: the loss of unstructured play and freedom. They also discuss the brand new partnership between their organizations and the launch of the Cosmo x 1000 Hours Outside Adventure Bu...

Clinical psychologist and ACT expert Diana Hill returns to help us do what feels nearly impossible in a loud, burned-out world—focus our energy where it actually matters. We talk psychological flexibility, why curiosity beats quick answers, and how “positive energizers” can lift a whole family system. Diana explains neuroception and interoception in everyday terms, then makes it practical: hum to...

Hospitality isn’t a styled table—it’s how people feel in your presence. In this heart-tugging conversation, Abby Kuykendall reframes hospitality as the art of helping others feel known, loved, and seen—whether you meet in a tiny apartment, a messy kitchen, or a neighborhood park. She draws a bright line between entertaining (me-focused aesthetics) and hospitality (others-focused welcome), shares t...

Ellie Holcomb joins Ginny to trace a clear line from her childhood on the Little Harpeth River to the music, books, and family life she’s building today. She shares how stepping off the tour bus to raise a newborn opened a new creative path—writing Scripture into song during a friend’s battle with depression, which grew into her devotional Fighting Words, a new record (Far Country), and children’s...

When Peter Mutabazi ran from an abusive home on the streets of Uganda at age ten, he never imagined he’d one day become a foster and adoptive father to more than forty children. In this conversation with host Ginny Yurich, Peter shares his extraordinary story of transformation—from a boy who had nothing, to a man who gives everything. He explains how one stranger’s act of kindness changed the traj...

Kids don’t need earlier tryouts—they need more backyard joy. In this conversation, former pro pitcher Dan Blewett shares how he started “late” by today’s standards, fell in love with the game through free play, and built the grit to endure multiple career-threatening injuries. He argues that early structure can crowd out wonder, and that the deepest resilience is born from neighborhood games, miss...