A Joyful Rebellion

Craig Meriwether is a hypnotherapist who works with the 95% of the mind that talk therapy often can't reach — the subconscious. His core idea: the anxiety, anger, and self-sabotage that won't budge aren't malfunctions. They're old protective instructions, written by a scared child to survive a specific moment, still running decades later in a life where they no longer fit. Craig breaks dow...

After raising five kids, Laurie Kirk found herself asking a question a lot of parents eventually face: who am I now? Her answer came through acting first, then writing, and eventually her first novel, a psychological horror-thriller called Baby Marvin. In this conversation, Laurie and James talk about what it looks like to build a creative life in your fifties, the family history that shaped her writ...

In 1994, Dave Mowry was driving down the freeway when he heard something like a twig snapping in his mind. His face went slack, his voice went monotone, and a deep sense of dread moved in that wouldn’t leave for 14 years. He lost his businesses, his home, spent 18 months homeless with his family. At the bottom, he sat on a  park bench with a gun in his hand. What pulled him back wasn&rsquo...

TJ Baird joined the U.S. Army at 17, turned 18 three days before graduating basic training, and spent the next 32 years in uniform — nine deployments, multiple combat tours. He came home each time carrying more than he showed. The armor held, until his six-year-old daughter told him he was too scary to be around. That moment sent him on what he calls the Reforge Journey — years of hard wo...

Nicholas Adkins spent his career as a healthcare executive — COO, 37 states, custom suits, cufflinks. Then his father was diagnosed with cancer, and in 2010, while sitting in a boardroom deciding the company’s future, Nick told them he’d have an answer after Burning Man. He came back in blue jeans, told them to sell, and moved to Portland to become a hippie. The kilts he started wea...

Sarah Marshall spent over two decades attending Burning Man — starting in 2001 when she arrived tightly wound, ready to bolt, and wholly unprepared for a place that asked for the full, unguarded version of herself. A military veteran turned engineer who had recently transitioned, she wasn’t ready to be seen. What she found, eventually, was a gift economy that knocks down social walls, a p...

Drewbie Wilson did everything right. He climbed from $40,000 a year in insurance to half a million, landed private jet trips, built a commercial gym in the garage, and bought the second fridge — the garage fridge, which he’ll tell you is the true sign you’ve made it.

Then in 2023, he walked away from all of it. The corporate politics had gotten unbear...

Most of us are really good at looking like we've got it together. Becca Eve Young decided to stop pretending.

She's a coach, author, and former corporate climber who did all the things — MBA, corner office, company going public — and watched it all collapse in the same year her dad died, stranded alone in rural Mexico during a global pandemic. What came out the other side was a book called It's Gonna Get Messy.

She help...

Aaron Ryan didn't wait for someday. He left a steady career, burned the bridges behind him, and started building something entirely his own. Nearly 50 books later, he's watching the two creative industries he's devoted his life to — voiceover and fiction writing — get quietly dismantled by AI. And he's got thoughts about it.

Aaron is a prolific sci-fi author, voice actor, and dual storyteller whose catalog includes the ...

Most people move through the world without thinking about how they move through the world. The door opens. The bathroom fits. The seat is reachable. For Jenna Udenberg, none of that has ever been a given.  And after nearly four decades navigating life from a wheelchair, she has stopped waiting for the world to catch up — and started educating it.

Jenna is an...

Most of us spend our careers trying to become important. We perform, we climb, we accumulate — and somewhere along the way we confuse being needed with actually being useful. Chip Scholz has spent decades coaching leaders through exactly that confusion, and he'll tell you plainly: the freedom you're looking for is on the other side of not needing to matter quite so much.

Chip is a leadership coach, author of Every Dog Has Its...

What if the only way to save the planet was to kidnap the world's billionaires and dose them with psychedelics? That's not a joke — that's Diana Colleen's debut novel. But here's what makes it more than just a wild premise. Diana is a trained psychedelic facilitator. She's lived through the kind of trauma these medicines are designed to help heal. And she genuinely believes billionaireism is a pathology — not a success ...

After spending decades performing at the highest levels of classical music, Kate Kayaian did something almost unthinkable in her industry: she walked away.

In this episode of A Joyful Rebellion, Kate shares the deeply personal process of untangling herself from an identity she had carried since childhood and learning how to build a life that actually reflected who she was becoming — not just who people expected her to be.

We ...

At 20 years old, Kenneth Kunken broke his neck during a college football game at Cornell University and was told he likely wouldn’t survive the week. Doctors warned his family that even if he lived, he’d spend the rest of his life in a nursing home with little hope for independence.

They were wrong.

In this episode of A Joyful Rebellion, Ken shares the long road from catastrophic spinal cord injury to earning multiple g...

Most people think they need a new idea to make more money—but what if they’re just overlooking what’s already there?

Bart Merrell helps people create financial security by monetizing what they already know, already do, and often completely ignore.

From building a DJ business at 15 to working internationally and turning everyday skills into income streams, Bart’s built his life around one simple question: can...

Why do so many people say they want change—but keep repeating the same patterns? In this episode of A Joyful Rebellion, James sits down with Kristan Swan to unpack the uncomfortable truth behind personal growth, identity, and self-awareness.

Kristan shares her journey from business coaching entrepreneurs to helping people reconnect with themselves through journaling, group conversations, and spiritual autobiography work. Toge...

What kind of conviction does it take to begin a nearly 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail hike at 72 years old?

For Rand Timmerman, the answer is layered in grief, sobriety, brotherhood, faith, and unfinished business.

A Vietnam veteran, longtime attorney, and recovery advocate, Rand set out on the Appalachian Trail with his brother shortly after overcoming alcoholism and while processing decades of emotional weight—including war t...

Burnout doesn’t show up when it’s convenient. It shows up when you can least afford to slow down.

In this episode, Garrett Wood breaks down what burnout actually looks like—not the Instagram version, but the real, physiological, day-to-day experience of it. From sleep disruption and irritability to chronic pain and identity collapse, Garrett walks us through the five stages of burnout and why high achievers are es...

A joyful rebellion isn’t reckless—it’s intentional.

In this conversation, novelist Cinda Gault breaks down a truth most people avoid: the hardest part of living on your own terms isn’t courage—it’s clarity. Because if you don’t know what you actually want, every decision becomes harder.

Cinda’s path wasn’t linear. She helped start a women’s crisis center in the 1970s, work...