Geoff Javer is a lifelong friend of Brett's, and in this episode, they sit down to unpack a journey that spans five decades.

From growing up navigating childhood trauma to finding an identity as the "party kid" in high school, Geoff shares how he struggled to fit into the traditional academic box due to dyslexia. A major wake up call in college led to an 18 year career climbing the ranks in the corporate insurance world, where he finally found the validation he had been seeking. Geoff eventually took a massive leap of faith to buy a drive thru convenience store. Twelve years later, he is not just serving a rural community, he is finding deep happiness and connection in the daily grind.

Geoff also opens up about his newfound passion for gardening and photography, proving that it is never too late to try something entirely new and find profound mental healing in the second half of life.

Gabby Goldach is a chiropractor, but she does not approach the body as a broken machine that needs fixing. She views the nervous system as a transmitter of life force, and her practice is designed to help your body remember how to heal itself.

In this conversation, Brett and Gabby trace the full arc. They explore her childhood in Columbus, navigating her parents' divorce at twelve, and the profound realization in Oslo that allowed her to finally reconnect with her father. Gabby shares the story of moving across the world to Norway, Spain, Andorra, and Singapore, and how those experiences shaped her return home to create "the inside space".

They discuss the profound impact of generational trauma, how a mother's nervous system wires her baby in utero, and why true healing requires us to step out of our educated minds and trust our body's innate intelligence. This is a conversation about releasing the narratives that no longer serve you and reclaiming your sovereignty.

Tricia Eastman — author, facilitator, and founder of Ancestral Heart — has spent her career bridging cultures, honoring initiation traditions, and supporting Indigenous-led land stewardship.

Right now, she’s part of a grassroots campaign to preserve iboga, the most sacred plant of Gabon — and arguably one of the most significant on earth. Through Ancestral Heart, donations are flowing directly to Blessings of the Forest and Maghanga Ma Nzambe, two community-rooted organizations working to protect this plant, secure livelihoods for forest stewards, and ensure this living heritage endures for generations.

This is communities coming together. Forest stewardship as reciprocity. A story worth filling your heart and your newsfeed in chaotic times. Join the journey toward peace, unity, and healing.

Donate or learn more at ancestralheart.com or https://donorbox.org/ancestralheart

Scott Levin is a tenured college professor, a lifelong friend of Brett’s, and someone who has learned to find profound comfort in life's unavoidable chaos.

In this conversation, Brett and Scott trace the full arc: growing up in Ohio, the sudden loss of his father at 13, discovering Dostoevsky to escape the trap of 1980s materialism, moving to New York City just two weeks before 9/11, and the decades of teaching that helped him understand the ultimate "in-between" stage of young adulthood.

They discuss the concept of "negative capability," why the materialism portrayed in novels like American Psycho leaves us feeling dead inside, and the true role of higher education today. Scott explains why his primary goal in the classroom is teaching young adults how to think for themselves, rather than pushing an agenda.

This is a raw, 40-year friendship on display. Whether you are navigating change or searching for deeper meaning beyond the material world, this conversation is a powerful reminder that we are never truly stuck.

Chantell Preston sold her healthcare company at 41 and thought she'd finally made it. What followed were the two hardest years of her life.

In this episode, Chantell traces the full arc: a childhood defined by divorce, abandonment, and a controlling home in Oklahoma. A teenage relationship that turned physically abusive and why she couldn't leave. The drive to prove herself that became the fuel of her entrepreneurial career, and the price she paid for it in every relationship that mattered.

When the business sold, so did her identity. The title was gone. The family was fracturing. And for the first time, she had to sit with the question she'd been outrunning her whole life: who am I without all of this?

Chantell is now an investor, author, podcast host, and co-owner of a professional volleyball expansion team in San Francisco. But the most meaningful work she's doing today can't be put on a business card.

This is a conversation about what success actually costs and what it takes to finally come home to yourself.

Michael Shapiro grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust. His grandmother survived Auschwitz. His grandfather was a Nazi slave soldier. By the time Michael was 12, he was self-medicating with drugs. By 15, he was having mystical experiences in the forest. By 48, he had become a Buddhist monk, a clinical psychologist, a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand, and the author of Truth Medicine: Healing and Living Authentically Through Psychedelic Psychotherapy.

This is a conversation about what it actually takes to heal. Not the shortcut version. The real version.

Michael and Brett go deep on intergenerational trauma and why we carry our ancestors' wounds in our bodies, the difference between using psychedelic medicine recreationally and using it as a doorway into serious inner work, the sister's letter that cracked Michael open at 19, and why true transformation requires community, not just ceremony.

If you've ever wondered whether you're doing enough work, or whether the work is even worth it, this episode is for you.

Truth Medicine is available wherever books are sold.

Jenny Shuman didn't map any of this out.

She became a mother at 16. She picked up her first loom at a summer powwow in 1992. She spent years selling beadwork from a booth while her daughter danced beside her in full regalia. She built a quiet, intentional life in Michigan and then left all of it behind for Oregon, her husband, and a new beginning she couldn't quite see yet.

Today, her work is worn by Bob Weir, Oteil Burbridge, Duane Betts, Anders Osborne, Derek Trucks, and Michael Franti. She's crafted straps for some of the most sacred instruments in music, including Jerry Garcia's Wolf and Alligator Guitars. Each piece carries a story. A family. A soul.

In this conversation, Brett and Jenny trace the full arc. The loving childhood in Rockford, Michigan. The grandmother who first put a needle in her hand. The teenage pregnancy, the alternative high school, the powwow trail with a toddler in tow. The sister she lost too young. The cross-country leap that cost her a pension and a paid-off house and opened something she never could have engineered.

And always, the loom. The meditation of it. The intention woven into every bead.

Jenny's story isn't a straight line. It's a perfectly imperfect tree, bent by wind and weather, shaped by love and loss, growing toward something most people spend a lifetime searching for: a life that is completely, unmistakably yours.

Learn more about Jenny here: Beadworkbyjenny.net

Ben Katt spent a decade building something rare: a contemplative community center in Seattle rooted in belonging, service, and inner life. From the outside, it looked like purpose-driven work at its best. Beneath the surface, the same old patterns were quietly running the show — achievement, performance, the hunger for approval.

It took a single moment on a morning run and the words if you don't have your heart, you have nothing to stop him cold.

In this conversation, Brett and Ben trace the arc of Ben's life from a childhood shaped by church, brotherhood, and the need to earn love through performance, through a decade of entrepreneurial ministry, through burnout and unraveling, and into the clarity that eventually became his book, The Way Home: Discovering the Hero's Journey to Wholeness at Midlife.

They explore why high achievers often do the most soulful work while still playing the same exhausting game. Why transitions are portals, not problems. And what it actually looks like to renovate your being from the inside out not just restructure your career.

Ben is a coach, meditation teacher, author, and faculty-in-residence at the Modern Elder Academy. He's also living proof that the unknown isn't something to rush through, it's where everything changes.