The Unimaginable Happens – Twice At just 17, Ava was living what most athletes dream about. She had a full ride to play Division I basketball at the University of Iowa, a close-knit family, and a future that looked bright and certain. Two days afte…
The Weight of Grief at Sixteen Grief has a way of changing how we see the world. For Cyra Sweet Dumitru, that shift came at sixteen when she lost her brother to suicide. The loss was sudden and traumatic, and she carried not only sorrow but also a …
The Checklist We All Think We Have to Follow For most of my adult life, I believed in the invisible checklist. Go to college. Get a good job. Work hard. Move up. Provide for your family. Keep going. It is a list so many of us carry without even rea…
The Moment Everything Changed Life can move along quickly, and sometimes we barely pause to notice. Brooks Bell was 38, running a successful company, and pushing herself harder than ever when everything stopped. What she thought might be a minor he…
Redefining Success Beyond the Checklist I grew up thinking success meant checking boxes. Get the right degree, land the job, live in the right kind of house. Andrew Mitch grew up with that same belief. Raised in a large Catholic family in small-tow…
The Moment Everything Changed When Ricardo Viso was ten years old, his mom dropped him and his brother at a local bowling alley. She promised she would be back in an hour. But she never came back. That single moment shifted the entire trajectory of…
Growing up in silence When I sat down with Shigeko Ito, I was struck by how familiar her story felt, even though the details were so different from my own. She grew up in Japan in what looked like an enviable home from the outside. Her father was a…
The Weight of a Single Choice Some conversations linger long after the recording ends. My talk with author and coach Cheryl Wilder was one of those moments. She shared the story of a night when she was twenty years old that changed everything. A de…
Growing Up Between Worlds Maria Gallucci’s story begins in a household where silence was never empty. As a child of deaf adults, she learned American Sign Language before she learned English. By the time she was 12, she was interpreting for her par…
The Wall You Cannot Push Past Sometimes life brings us to a wall that no amount of willpower can move. For Isabelle Daikeler, that wall was not just one moment but years of pain, fear, and a slow unraveling of identity. She had built her life on be…
The Day Everything Changed On September 11, 2001, Marty Ross-Dolen was standing in her bedroom in Albany, New York. Her young children were downstairs, and the news played on the TV as the towers fell. In that moment, Marty realized something she n…
When Illness and Perfectionism Collide For more than a decade, Heidi Blackie lived in the grip of chronic illness. On top of that came layers of grief, trauma, and perfectionism that pushed her to keep doing more even as her body was shutting down.…
The Power of Six Words Sometimes the biggest shifts in our lives come from the smallest details. For Chris Jordan, it was six simple words carved into his grandfather’s headstone: It was never dull. He first saw the phrase as a kid, tagging along …
The Unraveling No One Expected I often say that The Life Shift Podcast is about the line-in-the-sand moments we never see coming. For Dan Boettcher, that line appeared in an airport lounge. On the outside, everything looked perfect. Ivy League degr…
When Life Splits in Two Some moments divide life into a before and after. For psychotherapist and author Sally McQuillen, that moment came when her 21-year-old son Christopher died in a tragic accident. In our conversation, she described the way he…
The Morning Everything Changed Dan MacQueen was living the kind of life most twenty-somethings dream about. He had a fast-paced tech job in London, traveled often, and kept a full social calendar. Then one morning on the tube, his vision went black…
When Joy Collides With Crisis Childbirth is supposed to be one of the most joyful moments in life. For Taylor Coffman, it was also the most terrifying. Moments after delivering her daughter, her body began shutting down. What looked like exhaustion…
The crash that forced a new beginning Most of us move through life following a script. Get the degree. Land the job. Check the boxes that look like success. But what happens when you realize the life you've built doesn't actually feel like yours? …
When Grief Becomes a Turning Point Most of us don't plan for the moments that change everything. Britt Michaelian sure didn’t. She was living in San Francisco, raising her daughters, working in expressive arts therapy, and creating vibrant, Rothko-…
Chasing Success but Feeling Empty I recently had the chance to sit down with Kevin Palmieri, founder and co-host of Next Level University, to talk about a part of success that doesn’t get enough attention – what happens when achieving your goals st…
Redefining Grief and Rewriting the Story When Marie Alessi’s husband, Rob, died suddenly from a brain aneurysm, everything changed in an instant. He was away on a business trip. She had just kissed him goodbye at the train station, their kids ridin…
Learning to Trust Her Voice Again When Kaila Yu joined me on The Life Shift, I knew it was going to be a powerful conversation. But I didn’t expect it to sit in my bones the way it has. Kaila shared a story that most people would never speak aloud.…
Grief has a way of rearranging everything. For Dr. Devin DeGreif, it didn’t knock politely. It shattered her world in an instant. Her story is not just about surviving the unimaginable. It is about what happens when you choose to stay, when you deci…
Rethinking What Courage Looks Like I used to think bravery was about doing big things. Running toward danger. Standing in front of a crowd. Making massive, life-altering decisions. But after nearly 200 conversations on The Life Shift Podcast, I’ve …
