The Thought Atlas Podcast

What happens when faith stops being something you simply inherit and becomes something you experience personally? In this episode of Thought Atlas, I sit down with Marcia West to explore her journey from growing up in a largely secular home with a Presbyterian background to developing a deeply personal relationship with Jesus. Marcia grew up as the fifth child in a family of nine. Although her fam...

What can a chaotic career teach you about yourself, other people, and the world? For Houston Pierce, the answer is: quite a lot. Houston is the host of 1,000 Crazy Questions , a film critic and movie enthusiast whose interests stretch from pop culture and storytelling to technology, science, philosophy, spirituality, and everyday life. His own path has been anything but predictable. After pursuing...

What can a dance reveal about a relationship that a conversation might hide? According to Linda Sutton, quite a lot. Linda Sutton is a world dance expert with a specialty in African dance throughout the diaspora and Argentine tango. She is also an international performing artist, inspirational speaker, instructor, and the host and executive producer of The 22 Tango Show with Linda Sutton . In this...

Everyone has a story. But what happens when we actually slow down enough to listen to it? In this episode of Thought Atlas, I sit down with Nancy Jasin, a nurse, writer, educator, and lifelong observer who has spent much of her life paying close attention to people, relationships, health, and the moments that often go unnoticed. Nancy shares how growing up in New Jersey, her parents’ artistic infl...

What if the way you think, feel, and relate to other people isn’t simply “who you are” — but something you can deliberately train? In this episode of Thought Atlas, I sit down with Arnold Beekes, who describes himself as a global citizen and the creator of the Brain Athletes approach. Arnold shares how growing up in what he describes as a fear-dominated, highly authoritarian environment shaped him...

What happens when the life you thought you had built collapses almost all at once? For Troy Haslinger, April 2011 became a dividing line. After returning from a trip to the Caribbean, he learned that he was being placed on a performance improvement plan at work. Shortly afterward, he learned that his 38-year-old sister, Holly, had metastatic colon cancer. Eighteen months later, Troy had lost Holly...

What would you do if you left home with a $50 bill, a one-way ticket, and no clear idea of what your future would become? Frank McKinney did exactly that. After being asked to leave four high schools, leaving his final high school with a 1.8 GPA, and spending time in juvenile detention, Frank left Indiana for Florida at 18 with $50 and a one-way ticket. What followed was a life built around taking...

What happens when you refuse to fit yourself into just one box? Prince George has spent more than two decades moving across creative worlds including comics, music, television, radio, film, entrepreneurship, and more. But his journey isn’t really about collecting titles. It’s about recognizing different gifts, developing them, and finding ways to let them connect. In this episode of Thought Atlas,...

What happens when you repeatedly leave behind everything familiar and force yourself to begin again? In this episode of Thought Atlas, I sit down with Huw Evans, an author, professional editor, photographer, real estate investor, and self-described “jack-of-all-trades.” Born in the UK and raised across different countries because of his father’s military career, Huw grew up repeatedly entering unf...

What happens when being strong for everyone else becomes a reason you stop showing up for yourself? Anjelis Oliveira is a mother, grandmother, nurse of 20 years, and wellness coach who focuses on wellness and transformation. Her own journey led her to rethink what it means to survive, care for yourself, and make sustainable changes. In this conversation, Anjelis explains how becoming a teenage mot...

What if having a life that looks good from the outside isn’t the same as having a good life? Kirana Sidin is an author, strategic life coach, and certified counselor practitioner whose work centers on intentional living, personal growth, relationships, and the everyday choices that shape our lives. In this conversation, Kirana explains why she believes a good life isn’t simply a successful career,...

What does it take to start over when almost everything familiar has been left behind? Huw Evans is a published author, professional editor, photographer, real estate investor, and freelance contractor. Born in the UK and raised across different countries because of his father’s military career, Huw grew up repeatedly entering unfamiliar environments. After university, where he studied European bus...

What happens when a three-week vacation makes you question the life you’ve been building? Bill Mullen, better known to travelers as “Bangkok Bill,” spent years working in corporate leadership before deciding that the life he was living wasn’t the life he wanted. He describes the work as a grind and says he felt he was making other people rich rather than building the life he had envisioned for him...

What happens when surviving something is only the beginning of the journey? Angel Willard is a Canadian author from British Columbia and the author of Fighting to Come Home , a memoir about trauma, survival, motherhood, accountability, chronic pain, loss, incarceration, and rebuilding a life after profound hardship. In 2016, Angel was involved in a catastrophic car accident that almost took her li...

What if improving cash flow isn’t about finding more customers—but getting better at collecting the money your existing customers already owe you? Bill Ferrier, founder of Ready, Set, Collect, has more than 40 years of experience in the credit and collections industry. He argues that collections should be treated as an integral part of the business cycle and that collection teams need training jus...

What happens when you achieve the things you thought would make your life successful—and still find yourself asking what comes next? Katherine Ma grew up in Ohio, attended Emory University, and spent much of her career in consulting, including working at Bain & Company in New York. But the experience of achieving those conventional markers of success led her to question how she was defining a...

What if the biggest limitation of AI isn’t its ability to generate answers—but its inability to remember why those answers matter? Ben Finklea is a longtime marketing leader, entrepreneur, former marketing agency owner, and fractional CMO who has spent much of his career helping businesses grow. In this conversation, he explains why he believes context may be more important than increasingly sophi...

What If We’ve Been Reading the Bible Too Literally? | Dror Ben Ami Description What if some of the Bible’s most familiar stories carry meanings that are easy to miss when we read them only as literal narratives? Dror Ben Ami approaches biblical texts through language, metaphor, symbolism, and comparative literature. In this conversation, he explains why he believes Hebrew can reveal layers of mean...

What happens when being agreeable stops being simply a personality trait and becomes a way of surviving? Bradley L. Gabbert is the author of The Agreeable Child: A Yogic Journey from Tragedy to Triumph , a memoir exploring his experience with childhood trauma, people-pleasing, emotional health, relationships, and personal change. In this conversation, Bradley reflects on patterns he says began in...

What happens when the life you spent years building suddenly falls apart? At 35, Steve Gamlin walked away from his radio career, his marriage ended, and he discovered he was more than $60,000 in debt. After years of working six or seven days a week chasing the version of success he thought he was supposed to want, he found himself asking a different question: What kind of life do I actually want t...

What happens when the thing that has defined you for most of your life suddenly disappears? For Tim Randall, art has been his life since childhood. He has painted, tattooed, sculpted, airbrushed, and created murals, and says he has been tattooing for more than 20 years. After a severe traumatic brain injury, Tim lost abilities he had previously taken for granted, including his ability to create ar...

What happens when the voices we hear about ourselves become the voices we start believing? Rich Vysion is a recording artist whose work centers on mental health and self-empowerment. In this conversation, he opens up about how mental abuse, trauma, self-worth, and suicide ideation shaped his personal journey and influenced his music. Rich shares how recognizing his own sense of belonging helped hi...

Why do we sometimes know exactly what we need to do, yet repeatedly behave in ways that undermine what we want? Dr. Joseph Drolshagen, the Rapid Revenue Architect, explores the gap between conscious intentions and the patterns he believes operate beneath them. Drawing on his experience in sales leadership, business growth, and his work developing the SMT Method, Joseph explains his “hardware and s...

David W. Ebel was born with multiple birth defects and was told he was unlikely to live past 20. Growing up, he experienced chronic pain, bullying, depression, alcoholism, and four suicide attempts. Then, at 19, while planning to end his life, David encountered a young woman who invited him to church. What happened there changed the direction of his life. Now 74, David is a retired Salvation Army...

Marketing has changed dramatically since Leslie A.M. Smith began working in the field in 1994. But according to Leslie, the fundamental concepts haven’t changed. In this conversation, the seasoned marketing and public relations consultant explains why the digital world has made promotion increasingly complicated for small businesses—and why going back to the fundamentals may be more effective than...