Two very different and almost identical travelers, David Abel and I.

We both explore and breathe curiosity. David is demonstrably ambitious, I more demonstrably gestalt. His childhood Dickensian, mine bourgeois, yet each gave birth to a hunger for experience and a reasonably ambiguous approach to normal.

Signposts in our conversation turned us toward learning we couldn't hold back our own tides, being told we were 'very average,' and the insight we each felt when we realized we couldn't remember the 'last time I had heard my footsteps.'

Competition, grace, breathing, and the wonderful insight that the point of maximum fear is the point of minimum danger. Travel with us for a bit and put up your feet (then listen to your steps!)

Never know what's going to show up when you click 'record'!

As Lauri Smith and I traveled together for about an hour, I watched in my mind's eye a slide show of my childhood. We both were fine playing alone, we loved acting out stories and episodes. Both introverts. Both shy. Both actors and performers. Both empathetic, sometimes awkwardly so.

She told me about how she lost my way doing the good girl thing and how heavy the armor in front of my heart can become, at the end bringing these together around the quote attributed to Victor Frankl:

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

Come along for a brief shared journey - put your feet up and just listen.

Thanks.

Laurie Gardner and I share the dearth of a concept: career. We could be politely described as peripatetic, by others taken with sarcasm as short attention-spanned.

Laurie has tended bar around the world, including competing and doing well in mixology competitions. He has been cabin crew for an airline, and even worked in the construction industry for starters. We cover money, 'too much truth,' being a contrarian (that's a librarian who breaks the rule of silence :), 'too nice,' psychological safety, the loss of a value-driven society, and the 6th creature.

Please join us for a tilt-a-whirl journey as we enjoy being wildly curious.

Eyra and Mathieu collided with me in a conversation at The Friendship Bench. I have misplaced the topic, but not the experience. So I asked them to talk and listen for a bit and off we went - the quantum past, limiting beliefs, what sparks us, the soul is safe, eliminate the word 'better,' bags of sand, 'when (s)he's there, it's different'.

And that was for starters.

The two Nederlanders found each other, and found their focus, while letting go of the barriers and blockages that prevented them from accepting that 'everything is already there.'

We had a fantastic time as we approached our landing with you are whole . . . you just forgot.

Smoothly, professionally, I approach with "I really enjoyed your presentation on AI." Luckily, it's true, and Michelle gets that, so we had a great introduction, which led to lunch, a ping-pongy conversation, a friendship and this podcast. Wait until you hear about her foot and the subway door, her solo Odyssey in Asia, her lumpy bumpy road to her here and now.

Michelle clarifies and illuminates each time she focuses on any idea. We are riding a tandem bike. But it's side-by-side, not front-and-back. Have a party with us, okay?

"Doesn't work up to expectations" was inscribed repeatedly on my report card. Heather's too. She's danced professionally, I coincidentally, and we both love it. We talk about raising thinkers, loving what is whether we like it or not, discovering and working the shift that makes us feel better, and moments of humanity.

A community of two, old friends rediscovered, two people finding themselves in the same lifeboat and figuring out how to row, though not identically, together, and, of course, realizing that of course it's non-linear.

Join us.

Please.

"You may have to wait to talk, but you never have to wait to listen."

Every back2different podcast starts with a 5-10 minute story - the guest's answer to "How did you get here?" That's all we need to move forward together. Just notice and connect.

Jenlyn UNBN and I travel together for an hour and explore grieving, "the gray zone," our core selves, circumstance and experience, sexuality, kidnapping, EMS service, shamanism, and "I cannot give from an empty cup."

Tag along for a bit and ride with as as curiosity becomes audacity.

We had a wonderful journey together, Sarah and I, as we shared her blossoming, awakening, I guess, as an adult. As she says, "I found my voice at 40."

A classically trained singer, she was invited to sing in a surf band her husband had started and suggested "I can't do rock and roll." Guess what happened next, right?

Give us a listen, please, and find out why she was advised to "Land the plane, Sarah!"