Think Outside the Lines

Brian Sachetta spent nearly a decade treating his anxiety as something to manage. Deep breathing. Meditation. Mantras. The in-the-moment tools that help you get through a hard wave. And they worked, until they didn't. Then he hit a wall. After years of managing, a quiet question surfaced: what if all of it had been surface level, and the real work was waiting underneath? There is an old analog...

What If You Don't Need to Figure It Out First? How many times have you told yourself you just need to figure it out first? Before the career change. Before the creative project. Before the hard conversation, the move, the thing you keep circling but never landing on. It sounds responsible. Strategic, even. But waiting until you have it all worked out is one of the most effective ways to never...

Taylor Apolonio spent years learning how to make workplaces better for the people inside them. A first degree in interior design, then a graduate degree in workplace psychology, all rooted in one simple belief: systems should support humans, not the other way around. Taylor had the training, the tools, and the heart for the work. And then Taylor landed inside a workplace that didn't want any o...

Here's something that doesn't make sense on the surface. You know something needs to change. You can feel it. You've said it out loud — to a friend, to a therapist, to yourself in the car at 7 AM. You're clear about it. You're motivated. You might even be ready. And then nothing happens. Not because you don't care. Not because you're lazy or broken or not trying hard en...

Mariah Sheridan grew up wanting one thing above everything else — normal. A stable home, a loving partner, kids, a life that looked nothing like the one she came from. She built exactly that. A successful real estate career, a marriage people admired, three daughters, a home nestled in the Rockies. From the outside, it looked like arrival. And then, after nearly two decades, she walked away from i...

Picture this. You're at dinner with friends. Someone asks how things are going. And you say, "Good. Really good, actually." And you smile. And you mostly mean it. Because things are good. The job is solid. The relationship looks healthy. The routine works. From the outside, your life is something people would look at and say, they've got it together. And that's exactly what m...

Colleen Budde holds two mechanical engineering degrees, spent nearly a decade navigating the automotive and defense industries, and walked away from a combined household income of $300,000 — not because of a crisis, not because of a disaster, but because the system she was operating inside of was never going to bend. She and her husband purchased an Office Evolution franchise in January 2020, surv...

Here's a question worth sitting with: why isn't kindness the default? Not the performative kind. Not the kindness that gets posted about. The quiet, unglamorous kind that asks something real of you — the kind that requires you to stay open when the easier thing would be to shut down. Because somewhere along the way, we started confusing hardness with strength. And they are not the same thi...

Peter Moore spent thirty years catching a wave. As a top editor at Playboy and Men's Health, he interviewed presidents, shaped some of the most widely read magazines in the country, and ghostwrote three New York Times bestsellers — none of them under his name. He was very good at speaking in other people's voices. Then the wave carried him to shore, the tide went out, and the silence arriv...

Have you ever driven somewhere and arrived without remembering a single moment of the drive? You weren't asleep. You just weren't there. Your body was going through the motions while your mind was somewhere else entirely. That's autopilot. And the uncomfortable truth is — you can live your whole life that way. Same routine. Same conversations. Same goals you set three years ago that yo...

Cheryl Whitelaw built a life around planning. Bright, capable, and deeply achievement-oriented, she moved through academia and a career in intercultural education the way most of us do — by mapping the path ahead and executing it. Then one day, sitting in a windowless office she believed in, something shifted. Not a thought. A feeling. A knowing she couldn't explain and couldn't ignore. What follo...

You get the promotion. The title. The salary you told yourself would finally make things feel settled. And you get it — and everyone around you is thrilled. Your parents are proud. Your friends are impressed. Your LinkedIn looks incredible. But somewhere underneath all of that, there's a quiet voice asking:  is this it? That voice is easy to ignore. Because on paper, everything looks right. He...

Kimberly Lee spent ten years as a trial attorney — four as a public defender in downtown Los Angeles, six running her own practice. She had the pedigree, the credentials, and a career that looked like everything was figured out. She also had a throat that hurt every time she left the courtroom, a Sunday dread that never went away, and a quiet inner voice that kept growing louder. Today, Kimberly i...

Most of us never chose the rules we live by. We didn't have to — they were already everywhere. In what our parents valued, what our teachers rewarded, what our culture quietly insisted a good life was supposed to look like. Go to school. Get the degree. Find the stable career. Hit the milestones in the right order. And most of us followed those lines without ever questioning them. Not because...

Toni Will is the General Manager of the Kalamazoo Wings professional hockey team, a role she's held for over a decade after a 13-year career in banking and a brief, pivotal stop at the Chamber of Commerce. She's a speaker, coach, conference organizer behind empowHER, host of the  Women In  podcast, and author. She is also the force behind Rainbow Ice, making the Kalamazoo Wings the first p...

Shawn is returning to the conversation with one inescapable question: In a world dominated by five-step systems and polished highlight reels, what kind of conversations actually help us live better? This isn't just a rebrand; it’s a return to the "messy middle." Shawn shares the evolution of  Think Outside the Lines  and explores why the search for a life that actually feels true is...

After a decade of podcasting, Shawn is returning with one inescapable question: What kind of conversations actually matter right now? Welcome to the new era of Think Outside the Lines —a space for anyone who is done checking boxes, ready to step off autopilot, and looking to create a life that actually feels true. We aren't here for five-step systems, quick fixes, or polished highlight reels. We a...

Terry Tucker: Unlocking Your Extraordinary Potential Terry Tucker is a sought-after speaker who believes in the power of a good story to motivate, inspire, and encourage others to lead their uncommon and extraordinary lives. By combining his eleven-year cancer journey with his diverse business, athletic coaching, and law enforcement expertise, he delivers compelling yet relatable presentations for...

Cappi Pidwell: Unleashing the Power of the Subconscious Mind Cappi Pidwell is a Master of NLP & Hypnotherapy. As a Professional Speaker. Author Mindset Strategist, and Product Developer, she has been coaching and consulting audiences, corporations, associations, business owners, and Entrepreneurs on how to get rapid results with her mindset programs for over 29 years. Her keynotes and presenta...

Mark Williams' new book “The Connected Species: How understanding the evolution of our brain can change the world” is a #1 Best Seller. Mark has worked with thousands of students, teachers, health professionals, and company directors keen to understand how their brain works, how to perform optimally and maintain a healthy brain. He runs programs on the neuroscience of learning, the neuroscienc...

Reneau Peurifoy holds a master’s degree in counseling and is the author of four books: “Why You Feel the Way You Do,” "Anxiety, Phobias, and Panic: Taking Charge and Conquering Fear", "Overcoming Anxiety: From Short-Term Fixes to Long-Term Recovery", and "Anger: Taming the Beast." Reneau was in private practice for twenty years as a marriage and family therapist speci...

This conversation is with someone I have literally known for my entire life. We actually grew up together, and while we have gone on to forge our own paths in life, we reconnected for this conversation where she provides so many nuggets of wisdom that you're probably going to want to take some notes. She's an ex-corporate girl turned online marketing expert and CEO of her own multimillion-...

My guest today co-founded Team Builders Plus, one of the first team building companies in the United States, back in 1991. In 2012, he reinvented how people learn about themselves through the personality styles and started his second company, Take Flight Learning. He is the author of five books about tapping into the power of your personality, including *The Chameleon* and *Which Bird Are You?*. H...

My guest today has worked globally promoting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and furthering democracy. His work has taken many forms including writing and producing an award winning documentary on learning about the Holocaust at the Concentration Camps in Poland, Working on the Ghanaian Constitution, coordinating and producing events leading to Ukrainian independence, producing events fo...

My guest for this episode was at the top of my list of people I wanted to interview when I embarked on this crazy endeavor of creating a podcast--and she's proof that if you ask, the answer might just be a resounding YES! She embodies everything about my mission with this show, and I guarantee you: She'll have some significant tools to improve your life. She's a bestselling author, mot...