Voices for Voices®

How Folklore Becomes A Shared Universe For Every Community | Episode 481 Your hometown has lore. Someone saw something. Someone swears it happened. And most of the time, those stories stay trapped inside a diner booth, a school hallway, or a local police report. We want to pull them into the light and build something bigger than another random monster tale. We’re joined by David Solomon, CEO and f...

The Gap Between What Companies Promise and What They Do | Episode 480 A “we care about mental health” slogan is easy to print. Living it as a workplace policy is the hard part. I’m Justin Alan Hayes, and I’m getting real about how expectations, judgment, and chaotic work culture can pile up into stress and anxiety that follows you home. If you’ve ever felt like you’re failing when the system is ac...

My Mom Saved Me At That Funeral | Episode 479 A funeral can be a strange kind of trigger, even when you think you’re prepared. I share what it felt like to walk into a service with my anxiety running high, why grief-heavy spaces are hard for me, and one simple choice that made it more manageable: I didn’t go alone. If you deal with stress, panic, or emotional overload, this conversation offers som...

The Song That Broke Open Everything At This Funeral | Episode 478 A funeral can make everything else feel quieter and somehow sharper at the same time. We start with gratitude for the Voices for Voices community and the mission to reach and help billions, then the day takes a turn into something more personal: showing up for family, sitting in a Catholic Mass, and letting grief do what it does. Wh...

Diagnosed With Autism in My 30s | Why People Doubted Me | Episode 477 Some people hear “loud concert” and think inconvenience. I hear it and think sensory overload, the kind that can flood your body with too much sound, too much light, and too much motion all at once. For Autism Awareness Month, I’m getting personal about being diagnosed on the autism spectrum in my thirties, what that clarified f...

Fear of Being Forgotten When Nobody Comes | Episode 476 A quiet cemetery can say more than you expect. After Easter weekend, I drive to visit my dad’s grave and I find myself sitting in the car, trying to gather my thoughts before stepping out. The grief is real, but what hits me next surprises me even more: I look around and see so many headstones with nothing on them. No flowers. No flags. No sm...

Challenge Your Limits or Stay Stuck in Them | Episode 475 What if the biggest thing holding you back is not effort, luck, or timing, but the number you quietly decided you deserve? We get honest about limits, the sneaky kind that live in everyday expectations and turn into a ceiling for confidence, mental health, and momentum. We start with real life: gratitude for the community behind Voices for...

Artemis II And The Question Every Dreamer Must Answer | Episode 474 A Moon launch has a way of making you feel like a kid again and also forcing you to face what you are actually afraid of. I’m watching Artemis II lift off and suddenly I’m back in that old dream of wanting to be an astronaut, back in the reality of what space training costs, and back in the bigger question: what do we do when some...

You Don't Have to Forget to Forgive | Reclaiming Your Boundaries | Episode 473 Forgiveness is supposed to bring peace, but what happens when “moving on” starts to feel like erasing yourself? Justin Alan Hayes takes a straight, human approach to one of the most loaded phrases we hear in mental health conversations: forgive and forget. We unpack why forgiving can be a real act of strength while...

Gloomy Days Hit Different When You're Depressed | Episode 472 A gloomy morning can feel like a weighted blanket you never asked for and no amount of “just get up” advice touches it. Justin Alan Hayes gets real about what it’s like to wake up on an overcast, rainy day with depression and seasonal affective disorder, when your body moves slower, your mind needs more time, and the world still ex...

More People Die as You Get Older: Facing That Reality | Episode 471 Death does not wait for a “good time,” and grief does not follow a script. I sit down and speak plainly about what it feels like when more people start passing away as you get older, how losing a parent stays with you, and why those emotions can turn into real mental health challenges. If you are navigating bereavement, trauma, de...

Months Into a Case and Still No Evidence | Episode 470 A lawsuit can say almost anything on paper. The hard part is proving it when someone is under oath and the details have to add up. We talk about the First Amendment, freedom of speech, and why I’m willing to speak publicly when the subject is my own livelihood and the people around me. I also share a blunt reality many listeners face in silenc...

Exposing A Stephen D. Reimers Fundraising Fraud | Episode 469 Somebody asks you for money “for a creative project,” the logo looks real, the story sounds urgent, and the paperwork feels just official enough to quiet your doubts. That’s the moment we want you to pause. We talk with David and Amanda Solomon about what they allege happened around Mythical Creatures Around the World and related writin...

Stephen D. Reimers: Wage Theft & Fraud EXPOSED! (Ep. 468) Somebody can steal more than money. They can steal time, trust, and a name you worked years to build. We talk about what we describe as employee abuse with Stephen D Reimers as the supposed "Employer" through nonpayment, how “contracts” and job promises can be used to pressure people into unpaid labor, and why that crosses the...

Inside the Reimers Fraud: A Scandalous Deception (Ep 279) MERCHANDISE SHOP: voices-for-voices.org/3QnokLU SUPPORT VOICES FOR VOICES®: https://www.voicesforvoices.org/shop/p/supporter The invisible chains of human trafficking extend far beyond initial captivity. Today we tackle the disturbing reality that trafficking survivors in America face more barriers to essential services than both illegal im...

Legacy Thoughts | Episode 467 | What Will People Remember? Someday, a whole life gets squeezed into a few paragraphs and that fact can either haunt you or wake you up. We sit with that uncomfortable truth and talk about legacy in a way that has nothing to do with fame, mansions, or money, and everything to do with time, choices, and the people we touch along the way. A simple scene from a family m...

He Found a Six-Year-Old Who'd Never Slept in a Bed | Episode 466 A kid sleeping on the floor isn’t a sad metaphor, it’s a real crisis hiding in ordinary neighborhoods. I sit down with Luke Mickelson, the founder of Sleep In Heavenly Peace, to talk about the moment he learned children in his own small Idaho town had no beds and why that realization changed the direction of his life. What start...

Shannon Miller Talks 10 Years to Build 90 Sec & Salto | Ep 465 Ninety seconds on a balance beam can look like effortless perfection. Shannon Miller pulls back the curtain and shows what it really costs: ten years of 40-hour training weeks, the mental battle to stay steady under pressure, and the support of coaches, parents, and teammates who help carry the load behind the scenes. We also go to...

Choosing Your Own Path When Everyone Else Has Opinions | Episode 464 We reflect on how Voices for Voices grows past 460 episodes on community support and a mission bigger than budget. We share why gratitude, resilience, and honest mental health talk help us keep going and help others keep going too. • celebrating the Voices for Voices milestone and thanking supporters across the world • building a...

Why You're Not Behind (Antarctica Taught Me This) | Episode 463 If you’ve been staring at a goal that feels too big to carry, this live conversation is for you. We’re recording “untitled” on purpose, because life doesn’t show up neatly labeled and neither do the moments that test us. We celebrate a major milestone for the Voices for Voices podcast and Voices for Voices TV: 461 episodes of con...

If His Lips Are Moving He Is Lying | Episode 462 Someone can use your name, your mission, and your audience as a shortcut to steal trust. That’s the uncomfortable reality we tackle as the Voices For Voices platform keeps growing worldwide. We start by grounding the conversation in why we built this show in the first place: to be a voice for ourselves and for others in need, and to talk openly abou...

Your Unorthodox Path Is Working Even When It Doesn't Feel Like It | Episode 461 Waiting is easy when you don’t care. When you do care, the clock feels personal. We get real about impatience, the kind that shows up when you’re building something meaningful and you want proof that it’s working right now. I’m Justin Alan Hayes, and I share what it feels like to carry a long-term mission through...

Two Overlapping Shows Nearly Broke Us | Here's What Changed | Episode 460 Everyone sees the camera and the microphone. Almost nobody sees the stress, the admin, the bills, and the repetition it takes to keep a mission driven podcast alive. We get real about what’s happening behind Voices for Voices, why the work can look easy from the outside, and what it actually costs in time, energy, and f...

This Folklorist Rewrites His Own Stories When He Gets Details Wrong | Episode 459 A myth can entertain you for five minutes or it can carry a culture for generations, and that’s why the details matter. We sit down with folklorist and creator David Solomon for a wide-ranging update on Mythical Creatures Around the World, including what’s changing, what’s coming next, and what the pressure feels lik...

Your Body Isn't Lazy, It's Recovering | Episode 458 Some mornings, you wake up, sit down for a second, and suddenly you’re nodding off. It’s easy to blame your meds, blame your schedule, or blame yourself. I wanted to slow down and talk honestly about that foggy, confusing space where depression, fatigue, and sleep collide and where the world is quick to label people as “lazy” when somet...