The High Cost of Anonymity Podcast: Exploring the Cost of Keeping Your Life Experience to Yourself

Can you remember the last time you laughed so hard your stomach hurt the next day? What about, the last time you were overwhelmed with an emotion like gratitude, joy, or elation? I can remember times in my life where my emotions were so muted, I thought my ability to feel truly happy was gone forever. The crazy thing is, I didn't even realize I was settling... Emotionally. In other words, I though...

Until a few days ago, if you asked me what I thought about Legacy, I would’ve told you, who cares! It’s not something I’ve put much thought into. I remember my dad talking about Legacy before he passed, which makes sense because it seems like an older, more mature, and late in life type conversation. I also have an aversion to conversations around, where do you see yourself in five years or what d...

This just might explain everything! I finally took the Enneagram personality test and oh does it make some sense. I feel like I’ve been doing so much work around fear, anger, and the things that make me tick... or not. And sometimes it creates more questions than answers. I am a number nine, the peacemaker. Most of my problems derive out of an overwhelming desire to avoid conflict. Procrastination...

I admit it, I have an unhealthy relationship with my goals, dreams, and desires. I have always loved ideas like the Law of Attraction, SMART goals, and “if you can see it you can achieve it.” These are all good strategies and they work. I’ve just never been able to embrace them enough where they feel authentic. Some of the discomfort I feel around goalsetting and visualization is, I often feel unw...

Have you ever wondered if you are praying for the right thing? In the right way? Have you ever found yourself checking the boxes and saying the right things but you know something is off? On this episode I share the answers to some of these questions and they may surprise you.

One of the biggest shockers for me getting sober was realizing how many things I blamed on drinking and using that were actually part of my personality or personal short comings. For example, the thing I pray about the most is, asking God to help me be responsible and productive... yet it’s the area in which I struggle the most. Often, I’m a huge procrastinator, I avoid responsibility, and love to...

Willingness!  Willingness seems to be the answer to all things.  Because willingness hasn't been coming so easily for me lately, I've been praying for the willingness to be willing.  This was a piece of advice given to me in my early sobriety to combat resistance.  Often, I experience boatloads of resistance around that which I say I desire. In other words, even though I say I want something, my a...

The journey to self-actualization is an interesting one. Quite frankly, it’s F’ing hard. Life is hard. As far back as I can remember I’ve wanted things to be easy... I wanted everything to come naturally. I didn’t want to work at it, I didn’t want it to be difficult, I wanted it to be a breeze. And when it wasn’t, I’d quit, give up, or chalk it up to, maybe I’m just not interested enough. Afterwar...

If you have been wondering what it would be like to get sober during COVID-19, well Cristina‘s story will shed some light on it for us. She was barely into her new sobriety when everything started shutting down. The other thing I found interesting was how early in Christina’s recovery she started telling people. I have had a personal bias towards when someone should start disclosing their sobriety...

Anger is something I have struggled with my entire life. Not in the sense of losing my temper, it's actually quite the opposite. I’ve worked extremely hard to not feel anger. What I have always touted as a great asset, the ability to stay calm and not lose my temper, was actually a dysfunctional way to handle my emotions... which was by not feeling them. What makes this arena confusing for me is I...

On this episode, I share a great conversation with Amy Guerrero of Thrive in Recovery with Amy.  Amy helps people discover their purpose to create the life they desire, to go beyond surviving, to thriving in all areas of life.  There are so many things to like about Amy. Biasedly, the fact that she is from Texas is high up on my list!  Amy talks about her tough childhood, inter...

I have this tendency to live everywhere else but in the moment.  I am either in the past or in the future.  In other words, I naturally gravitate towards fearing the future or looking to the future for something to change the way I feel like.  For example, I have a new pair of Jordan's showing up today.  Oh, how great I'm going to feel when I have them in my hands and get my first complement, lol!...

I'm on the second round of listening to Rob Bell's new book, Everything is Spiritual.  I literally finished it and immediately started over.   I've never done that before. In chapter 5 he talks about how we can be at odds with our past; we can be at war with our history... and how do we resolve those parts of our lives we may be trying to forget about or move on from?  What abo...

This was a great conversation about story, music, parenting, humanity, advocacy, and one of the biggest challenges our communities face today, how to address and move forward after years of systemic racism.  Although there has been new information released about the Breonna Taylor case since this recording, the overarching takeaway for me is, how do we use our strengths and differences to bring ou...

The thing I enjoyed about my conversation with Kim is, she's a great example of a large majority of people struggling with addiction or mental health challenges... they are functioning, often professional, and masters at hiding in plain sight.  They may not even know that the way they feel or the amount of substances they are using is abnormal.    Kim has always been a high achiever...

If you have not heard already, one of our community's biggest advocates, Dax Shepard, is starting over.  He relapsed on opiates after 16 years of sobriety.  There was a time in my life when I would get mad at people that went back out.  I thought it looked bad on our community when people relapsed, especially those that had a more public image.  I didn't realize it at the time but my anger was roo...

Brad McLeod shares his story about how he went from a comfortable life in Canada living with his grandparents to being uprooted and moved to Waco TX then North Carolina and eventually being banished from the U.S... For real!  What I like about Brad's story is how the thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors were present long before his addiction to drugs.  He shares his struggles as...

I've been on a path of personal development for a very long time and my view of what I think I "know" changes... a lot!  Sometimes I'm seeking knowledge to be a better husband, father, and human and sometimes I'm searching for some sort of spiritual enlightenment.  Lately, I have been headed down this path of wanting to know more about the Bible.  Not that I want to become a Christi...

As I journaled this morning I wrote about a topic that consistently comes up for me. Why is it that I have this vision of who I want to be when I grow up, the kind of father and husband I want to be, how I want my life to be and yet, when I get the opportunity to move in that direction or to do something productive for that vision, I’ll watch Netflix instead!? Usually, I’ll subconsciously follow u...

Have you ever wondered why something happened the way it happened? Why did my family member pass away? Why did that relationship end? Why did I grow up the way I did? Why did they let that happen to me? One of the things I love most is haring the story behind the art, the story behind the person, where are they from, how did they get there. and what's that song about? On this episode Ricky tells u...

I met Peter 19 years ago in an NA meeting and as he remembers it, I didn't care for him too much.  Really, it was because he talked too much... and that's not something I needed help with!   I went from being someone who was forced to go to 12 step meetings, to realizing I had a drug and alcohol problem but couldn't imaging my life without them, to wanting to be there and needing all the...

There are some conversations that check allllll the boxes... and this is one of them. I met Kendall when she was on Tea with Garyvee - #teawithgaryvee . What stood out to me was, she’s a professional combat athlete, jujitsu and wrestling specialist, business owner, influencer, was the valedictorian of her high school and has struggled with an eating disorder and body image issues most of her life....

Have you ever felt like a kid in an adult's body?  In one way or another, I have felt that for years.  I chalked it up to being normal... who doesn't feel like a kid sometimes?  However, what I talk about in this episode is different.  Today, I cover the transition I've been in for the last year or so... moving from a childish and uncertain boy to fully embody my adulthood and manhood.  It sounds...

Born to a teenage mother, eventually becoming a teenage mother herself, drugs, dating drug dealers and a propensity for powerful men. Carmell was always chasing the next big thing in an effort to escape the mess and chaos that seemed followed her. After a chance encounter with a stranger who gave her a phone number and said, “when you’re ready to get clean give me a call.” She finally did and it c...

Preston Moore interviews Rickey Green aka Dolla Green about his new single, Here We Go Again. featuring Kylee Love. There is something that happens when you connect with art.  Sometimes you can't even explain why you like it, you just know you like it.  With Rickey, I connected with his authenticity on Instagram stories first.  Once I realized he was a real person and had a story, I...