Warriors Unmasked

Sometimes, the hardest journey isn't finding your way through the world. It's finding your way back to yourself. In this episode of Warriors Unmasked, Chuck Tuss welcomes Nicole Kranz, a Brazilian-born, Geneva-raised writer whose life has taken her across the world. Behind her international background and confident personality is a deeply personal story of family struggles, destructive relationshi...

What happens when the game you love becomes one of the hardest places to navigate your mental health? In this episode of Warriors Unmasked, Chuck Tuss sits down with Nolan Boyd, former junior hockey goaltender and Lead Goaltending Instructor at Armour Goaltending in Toronto, to talk about the struggles that can happen behind the scenes in sports. Nolan grew up loving hockey. From getting his first...

For most of his early life, Randy Lyman relied on logic, discipline, hard work, and achievement. As a physicist, engineer, and founder, that approach worked—at least on the surface. But underneath the success was something Randy had deliberately shut down: his emotions. A deeply personal breakthrough at age 28 forced Randy to confront emotional wounds he had spent years suppressing. What he discov...

What happens when the thing you thought defined you is suddenly taken away? For Athena Brownson, professional skiing was more than a career. It was her identity, her passion, and the center of her life. But after nine knee surgeries and two neck operations, she eventually had to confront a reality she never imagined: skiing could no longer be her future. That transition forced Athena to figure out...

What happens when you stop running from the things that hurt you and finally turn around to face them? At just 20 years old, Lawrence C. Harris has already lived through severe bullying, childhood abuse, mental health challenges, and experiences that forced him to grow up much sooner than he should have. For years, the effects showed up in ways he didn't always recognize, from emotional distance a...

What if some of the beliefs shaping your life aren't actually yours? For nearly 20 years, Dr. Mike Fortunato worked as a board-certified anesthesiologist. From the outside, he had what many people would consider success: a respected career, financial stability, a wife, children, and a beautiful life. But underneath it all, Mike was struggling with depression, alcohol, anger, emotional disconnectio...

When thousands of people were running from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Michael Dorian made the decision to run toward it. But Michael's story began long before that day. Born into poverty to a teenage mother, Michael grew up in an unstable home and spent much of his early life searching for independence, acceptance, and belonging. As a teenager, that search led him into crime and...

Nearly 25 years later, there are still stories from September 11th that many Americans have never heard. Award-winning director and producer Michael Gier set out to tell those stories in his documentary, The Heroism and Resiliency of 9/11: From Tragedy to Triumph. Rather than focusing solely on the devastation of that day, Michael turns the lens toward the extraordinary courage, compassion, and re...

Sometimes healing doesn't start in your head. It starts in your body. For 17 years, Erika Shershun did everything she was told she was supposed to do. She went to therapy. She named her depression. She worked on her thoughts. But the symptoms kept coming, and underneath them was a survival story her body had never been given the space to release. This conversation dives into what somatic psychothe...

Sometimes the thing that almost ended your life becomes the chapter that defines it. By the time Devin Fish was 18, he had moved 16 times, attended seven different schools, and survived a childhood shaped by poverty, bullying, and his parents' struggles with addiction. He thought joining the Army would be the start of something better. Then in July 2017, a Red Cross message forced him to fly home...

You are not defined by the hardest thing you have been through, the worst decision you have made, or the darkest season of your life. After more than 33 years as a trauma-informed psychotherapist, Scott Stolarick has sat across from people carrying pain most of the world never sees. From psychiatric hospitals and county jails to private practice, Scott has worked with people who have experienced t...

Sometimes the thing that breaks you becomes the very thing that gives your life purpose. At 19, Miguel Bautista was driven, active, and always pushing himself to the limit. He was an athlete, a personal trainer, a top performer at work, and the kind of person who believed the answer was always to work harder, push through, and keep going. But over time, his body started sending signals he could no...

Life will hand you things you never asked for. The question is, who do you become on the other side of it? Stacie Shifflett has walked through unimaginable loss, major life transitions, and seasons that could have easily left her stuck in bitterness, anger, and grief. After losing her son, navigating the end of a 28-year marriage, and now facing a new health challenge that has changed her independ...

Some stories stay with you long after the mission ends. After 21 years in the United States Air Force, Derrick Jackson knows what it means to serve, sacrifice, and carry the emotional weight that comes with military life. From working as a jet engine specialist to becoming a Special Agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Derrick's career took him across the world and into situa...

Grief isn't something you move on from. It's something you learn to carry. After losing three of his closest friends, John Kammer found himself doing what so many people do — avoiding the pain, pushing it down, and trying to outrun it. But over time, he realized something wasn't working. Because grief doesn't go away when you ignore it. It waits. This conversation dives into what it actually takes...

At some point, you have to decide — are you all in, or are you just interested? Andy Whittier's journey didn't follow a straight line. From walking on to a college football team in his hometown to discovering a sport he didn't even know existed, his path has been defined by one thing: the willingness to bet on himself when nothing was guaranteed. This episode goes beyond sport. It's about what hap...

What if the worst diagnosis of your life became the greatest gift you've ever received? When Glenn Sturm got the call at an airport in 2009 telling him he had an aggressive, incurable form of T-cell lymphoma, everything should have stopped. Instead, something unexpected happened — his perspective shifted. Rather than letting cancer define him, Glenn made a decision: he would celebrate life every s...

The hardest battles don't always happen in combat. For Major General (Ret.) Matt Smith, the real challenge began after the uniform came off. After 32 years of service leading thousands in high-stakes environments, he found himself facing a different kind of question, Who am I now? This conversation goes beyond leadership and into something much deeper. It's about what happens when your identity ha...

There's a point where pushing through just doesn't work anymore. For Keith Cole, that moment didn't come in combat. It came decades later — after war, loss, responsibility, and years of carrying more than anyone could see. A Vietnam Marine veteran, CPA, husband, and provider, Keith spent over 50 years holding it all together… until one night, alone in his office, everything finally broke. This epi...

What happens when you come home from war… but your mind doesn't? Sean Martin didn't just serve in the military, he went searching for meaning, purpose, and truth at the highest level. What he found came with a cost. After his service, he was left navigating PTSD, disillusionment, and a reality that no longer felt like home. This conversation goes beyond the surface of "life after service." It expl...

Sometimes the life you're living doesn't feel like your own. Before becoming a leader in youth substance use prevention, Eric Mazzeo was stuck in a cycle he couldn't break: addiction, jail, loss, and a constant battle with himself. On the outside, he came from a good home and had real opportunities. On the inside, he was overwhelmed with fear, anxiety, and a deep sense of not feeling like he belon...

When Shannon Ivey was diagnosed with late-stage colorectal cancer at 42, she was a single mom in a new city with no built-in support system. What followed wasn't just a medical battle. It was a crash course in self-advocacy, resilience, and learning how to navigate a system that wasn't designed for someone in her position. In this episode, Shannon shares what it really looks like to face a life-th...

Confidence is often seen as something you either have or don't. But what if that's not true at all? Simone Knego has spent years helping women unpack the stories that keep them stuck in self-doubt, overthinking, and the constant pressure to be "more." In this conversation, she shares how confidence isn't built through perfection, achievement, or external validation — it's built by learning to trus...

What if the body already knows how to heal, and the missing piece is learning how to get out of its way? Bob Ross has spent a lifetime at the intersection of science, medicine, emergency response, and human potential. With a background in physics, medical research, and decades of hands-on experience helping people survive trauma, Bob has seen firsthand how unresolved emotional shock can quietly sh...

Losing your way can sometimes be the beginning of finding who you really are. Robert Pallante's life revolved around hockey from a young age. Growing up in the Toronto area, he played at the highest levels, earned a college scholarship, and chased the dream so many young athletes believe defines them. But when his hockey journey didn't unfold the way he expected, Rob was left struggling with ident...