“There’re so many outside factors making our kids feel like they need to be perfect. Whether it’s continually comparing themselves to others on social media, all they absorb from their phones, struggling to be the best on the sports field, or doing great at academics. This adds so much outside pressure to their lives. They don’t get a chance to be themselves. It’s really hard to be a kid these days” ~ Superintendent Joel Bailey

The quote above sounds to me like it would be from a superintendent of a school district in a big city like LA, Chicago, or New York.

BUT, it actually comes from our guest this week, who is the superintendent of the Platte-Geddes school district in south central South Dakota. Platte is a town with a population hovering around 1,300 and Geddes has around 156 people. In other words, the school district serves kids who live seemingly so far away from the problems and pressures of big city life. Yet, these students struggle with the same stress and anxieties, just as kids all over the world do. Superintendent Joel Bailey is passionate about helping them.

He points out that while young people are stressing over some of the same things their parents did, they’re also saddled with the seemingly impossible task of competing with the world as presented through their Instagram and TikTok feeds. They’re judging their beauty and measuring their self-worth against unrealistic filters and AI augmentation.

Joel guides students from the understanding of his own experiences with anxiety and depression. He began his career teaching 4th and 5th grade and middle school. However, he jokes that his anxiety started in earnest the summer he taught driver’s ed to high school students. Teaching is indeed his first career passion, but he also loves the ability school administrators have to improve so many students’ lives at once. Having earned his PreK-12 Administration degree from University of South Dakota, and his Education Specialist Degree from the University of Sioux Falls, he is not only the current superintendent of the Platte-Geddes school district but also the principal of one of its schools.

I’m excited to have an Awkwardly Awesome conversation with Joel about the ideas and tools he has for combating the anxieties and complexities our young people face.

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**Video broadcast available** on YouTube @imperfectbest

**Learn more about Jason Freeman** at AwkwardlyAwesome.com

“I’m fifty-five. If I can’t be authentic now, when is that going to happen? I don’t want to go to my grave being inauthentic.” ~ Dina Lantzer

“Temporary, extreme fear while speaking the truth is easier to overcome than perpetual fear of the unspoken truth.” ~ Matt Lantzer

Against all odds, Matt and Dina Lantzer had a marriage that worked. They married young, when Dina was 21 and Matt was 18, but they stuck with each other through thick and thin, raised 3 kids and have 4 grandkids.

After 35 years together, they discovered a painful truth: they had both developed a long standing habit of hiding things from each other, both big and small. In this discovery, they came to realize that their fear of transparency with each other was simultaneously limiting their marriage's potential and smothering their individual joy.

Join me for this nitty gritty conversation on the power of speaking our truth within our most intimate relationships.

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**Video broadcast available** on YouTube @imperfectbest

**Learn more about Jason Freeman** at AwkwardlyAwesome.com

Do what you believe in and let meaning and service follow from that.

This is the core concept I keep coming back to as I think about my next guest’s story…

Scott Ehrisman is a multi-talented artist, a community activist, community builder, a friend to a great many people and an all around kind person. He’s truly committed to doing the things that interest and excite him. He’s had twenty different jobs, fueled by a drive to constantly better himself through learning new things and challenging himself. This drive led him to lose 130 pounds over the course of the last two two years. A personal commitment to himself found him commuting everywhere by bike last winter, sans four inhospitable days. AND keep in mind, Sioux Falls, South Dakota winters are windy, snowy, icy, and bitterly cold!

Scott’s commitment to making his convictions actionable is astonishing. A few years back, he took six months off of work to recharge, develop new fascinations, and refocus on what he wanted from life.

After researching and dreaming about starting a pedicab business for a decade, he took a leap this summer and started Downtown Rickshaw in downtown Sioux Falls. For those who aren’t up on your pedicab or cycle rickshaw lingo, picture a human-powered, three wheeled, taxi-bike service.

I love talking to Scott because in this super challenging world he has found the courage to be himself, exactly as he is, in all his brilliance, and that helps me find the courage to embrace who I am. I hope our conversation inspires a deeper recognition of your own brilliance.

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**Video broadcast available** on YouTube @imperfectbest

**Learn more about Jason Freeman** at AwkwardlyAwesome.com

“I’m a fan of my fellow human being, I’m a fan of achievement. My mother’s hippie ways are deep within me. When I leave the world, I have the responsibility to leave it better.” ~ David Ervin

Right out of college at Penn State, David Ervin was hoping to find a job with a steady paycheck that could cover life’s essentials: car insurance and beer. Instead, what he found was a warm welcome into a community that transformed his life both professionally and personally.

David speaks passionately about how people who experience disabilities are part of the broad and sacred spectrum of what makes up humanity. He notes that there tends to be an urge to help those with disabilities out of a sense of pity. However in his experience, people with disabilities are definitely not charity cases. With reverence, David says, “I’ve learned so much from people with disabilities: grit, perseverance, bravado, the ability to find hidden strengths and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.” He goes on to say, “The people I have worked with for over 40 years want opportunity just like I do. When given an opportunity, they succeed.”

David points out, need for each other is simply part of what unites us. He talks enthusiastically about how interdependent human beings are and views the act of offering people with disabilities help is no different than offering anyone else help.

Currently the CEO of Makom, David supports and empowers people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to achieve the quality of life to which they aspire. He is also Conscience of the Field Editor for Helen: The Journal on Human Exceptionality.

Tune in for this enriching conversation.

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**Video broadcast available** on YouTube @imperfectbest

**Learn more about Jason Freeman** at AwkwardlyAwesome.com

We all experience challenges. Some of these challenges are easy for those around us to spot, while others may be utterly invisible to others.

For instance, every time I speak my speech impediment is heard loud and clear by everyone within earshot. On the other hand, my friend and colleague Ryan Groenweg experiences Usher’s Syndrome which involves hearing loss and progressive vision loss. For most of his life, Ryan has been able to conceal his disability from the people around him in a way that I have never been able to hide mine. Over the past year, Ryan and I have presented together in front of audiences around South Dakota. We have found that there are both benefits and drawbacks to having a challenge out in the open, just as there are benefits and drawbacks to being able to hide a challenge. The key to thriving with a disability as part of your experience is definitely not black or white.

Tune in to hear this unique conversation between Ryan and I, where we ask each other questions about our unique disabilities, joke around, and ponder the hidden and visible nature of life.

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**Video broadcast available** on YouTube @imperfectbest

**Learn more about Jason Freeman** at AwkwardlyAwesome.com

“Our brains are our super power. To stop it from thinking is like trying to get our hearts to stop beating.” ~ Kirk Hinkleman

Have you noticed how hard it is to find calm in a world that offers so many distractions and reasons to be stressed out?

Sure, paying closer attention to the present moment and breath work offer some hope of relief. Yet, practices such as mindfulness and meditation take patience, and consistency to be effective. These practices unfortunately can be very off-putting, before they become healing.

Kirk Hinkleman returns to the Awkwardly Awesome Podcast to help us navigate this conundrum and others as we each do our imperfect best to navigate our daily lives. Kirk is the Director of Creative Design and Wellbeing at both Life Works and Alliance of Change. He is a speaker, author, and a Certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher committed to helping people find purpose through awareness-based action. He proudly calls himself a “positive agitator” and is an irreverent, brilliant and a student who learns as he teaches. Please join me for this sure to be enlightening Imperfect Best, Awkwardly Awesome conversation.

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**Video broadcast available** on YouTube @imperfectbest

**Learn more about Jason Freeman** at AwkwardlyAwesome.com

“One can become an optimist through challenge, but also there’s the element of growing as an optimist by seeing others experiencing challenge. Through it, you can learn resilience and you can find hope. Seeing hope in the world is truly what makes us compassionate beings.” ~ Lisa Groon

Simply put, more often than not, life can be painfully awkward and imperfect! Great, unexpected challenges come up, like when one of your parents is diagnosed with Alzheimer's and, later, the other is diagnosed with dementia and requires care.

Having two parents concurrently in cognitive decline would be challenging enough under the best of circumstances, but caring for them while also supporting and caring for three children and fostering a healthy family, with the help of her husband of course, well, that takes quite a degree of resilience. Undoubtedly, the key to Lisa’s resilience is her unwavering outlook on life. As she says, “The more good you look for, the more good you find.”

Lisa Groon is a healthcare quality strategist and caregiver advocate with over twenty years of experience in patient-centered care. Inspired by her role caring for a mother with Alzheimer’s, she reframes dignity as an act of compassion and presence that we can choose to give. Her Dignity Paradox framework challenges conventional approaches to Alzheimer’s caregiving, empowering caregivers to preserve dignity through presence. She also brings these lessons to life through keynotes, workshops and a TEDx talk, guiding audiences to deepen connection and restore dignity in the human experience.

In short, Lisa thrives on being a leader in challenging situations. Her number one tip for good leadership? “Assume good intent.”Yes, my next guest is obviously highly quotable. Want one more? When asked her thoughts on cooling the current political climate, she offers: “It’s important to remember that taking care of one another starts with being kind, one seemingly small act at a time.”

I am both excited and honored to have a talk with Lisa Groon. Eagerly awaiting more gems like the ones above, I look forward to discovering the important ideas and stories she has to share with us.

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**Video broadcast available** on YouTube @imperfectbest

**Learn more about Jason Freeman** at AwkwardlyAwesome.com

AMBER: “I have such a cool job! It’s challenging, frustrating, exciting, even thrilling at times. It’s really satisfying to me to explore the ‘why’ behind patient decisions. If I can understand their why, I can often shift my perspective, allowing me to understand their decision, even if it differs from what I value or believe.”

EMILY: “We work with complex cases that involve patients from all walks of life. Regardless of what brought them through our doors, people are worth our time. People are worthy of our care. When a patient faces a life changing situation, even if the outcome is not great, we can still know that we did our best even if it feels extremely imperfect.”

When our interaction with the medical system consists of a yearly check up, maybe a few labs, or skipping preventive care altogether, it can be easy to adopt an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ philosophy about the world or medicine. Indeed, doctors, nurses, clinics and hospitals can seem a world away when we feel healthy; not unlike how a country that’s half a world away, may seem alien compared to our own. But, unlike the country that will likely remain optional to visit, chances are at some point in our lives we will have to interact with the healthcare system either because we need care or our family members or friends need care.

Enter Amber Allen and Emily Leuthold, both nurses turned clinical ethicists who help patients, families and healthcare professionals navigate the complex and sometimes agonizingly painful questions that often come in all shapes and sizes with healthcare challenges.

As I talked with Amber and Emily in preparation for this episode, it became abundantly clear that many decisions in medicine are highly emotional and complicated with no ideal answer that 100% pleases everyone involved. However, what can be created is a conversation where everyone feels heard and where ethical principles and frameworks are considered as an imperfect best decision is reached.

I don’t know about you, but when emotions run high, I want perfection. This conversation should be very illuminating.

If you’ve ever been curious about what it’s like to work in this intensely challenging and rewarding field, had questions about morals vs. medical ethics, wanted to know the difference between palliative care and hospice, or to learn about advance care planning, this episode is for you.

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**Video broadcast available** on YouTube @imperfectbest

**Learn more about Jason Freeman** at AwkwardlyAwesome.com