Dr. Darian Parker, the IDEA Personal Trainer of the Year 2023 recipient, is a multihyphenate entrepreneur, athlete, and a man of faith. And he is breaking open myths. On what it takes to be a Division-1 Student Athlete competing at elite levels. On the interior work he has to do to be a good father. On the reality that life is lived at its best and realest without guarantees or known outcomes but is founded on authentic love for our fellow humans. And so many more. All we can rely on is our ability to build true relationships with one another and to make a commitment to show up every day even when the outcomes are unknown or don’t go our way. Darian believes that one’s life doesn’t bloom under the bright lights of fame, accolades, or ego. Instead, it is a relentless dance performed in the powerful spaces of the phrase “I don’t know.” For Dr. Parker, the real champions show up daily and do the monotonous grunt work that is a major and essential part of what we call living.

In season two of At the Podium, the power of speaking and owning your truth came up in all the interviews of the show. As I asked each remarkable guest about their journeys to finding their own voices and what they wanted to say with the immense platforms they had, they all expressed the need to use their voices to help others, but also to speak truth over their own lives and lived experiences. Perhaps because we live in a time when the truth, when facts, even basic humanity are under threat, the ability to speak and own your truth becomes the ultimate commodity. It is a gift more precious than gold, because for so many of my guests, speaking the truth was the light that led the way to healing the broken places of their lives. What a privilege it was for me to sit in fellowship with the incredible people who honored me with their time, their hearts, and their wisdom. For that, I am eternally grateful.

Nina Curtis is a world-renowned Vegan Chef. Her dishes have been savored on the palates of presidents and prime ministers, foreign dignitaries and political powerbrokers, and first grade students. Most recently she made history by becoming the first chef to prepare and serve an all plant-based meal at the White House’s State Dinner for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. When we talk about what led her to a life and a career built on veganism, her somewhat improbable journeys merged on the Venice Beach bodybuilding scene. Where eating a plant-based diet helped her performance and recovery in competitions. But the seeds for her love of food, ingredients and the process of curating and preparing a meal were planted within her by her parents. Her father is a technically trained French Chef, and her mom (whom Nina describes as the best cook she knows), is a formidable cook in her own right. Chef Curtis’ ethos today in the kitchen isn’t ego-driven or based upon her celebrity chef status. Instead, her guiding forces are the examples of her father and her mother. And her ancestors. It’s the ever-present voices of her parents and the legacies of her ancestors of whom she says, “I’m always working to be quiet enough to hear their whispers and their guidance.” And their whispers tell her to humbly do your work, keep your head down and use food to build ally-hood among people, among governments, among nations. And to remember that the seeds she plants today, will have reverberations for centuries to come.

The New York Times called George M. Johnson’s memoir and manifesto All Boys Aren’t Blue “An exuberant, unapologetic memoir infused with a deep but clear-eyed love for its subjects. Johnson lays bare the darkest moments of his life with wit and unflinching vulnerability.” Despite the praise, it’s also a book that has been banned in 8 states and 29 school districts for being what its vocal critics call sexually explicit, pornographic, and inappropriate for kids. It is a shocking story in many ways. George details being molested by a family member at 12 years old and how that colored their views of trust and intimacy throughout their life. What it was like to have their first consensual sexual encounters without the knowledge or preparation for what that meant physically and emotionally. The book is uncomfortable and unexpected for the reader at times. Does it cross over into pornography and inappropriateness? Definitely not. In the book and in our conversation, George paints different, nuanced possibilities for black boys, pulling us from the obscurity of self-erasure into a declarative existence. What does it look like if you get to define for yourself who you are? What if you find love and brotherhood and companionship with other black men, as opposed to just fearing one another? What if you get to paint with all the colors of the rainbow, not just blue?

Author Nora Zelevansky and I have a nuanced conversation about Roll Red Roll: Rape, Power, and Football in the American Heartland. A book that she and Nancy Schwartzman wrote based on Schwartzman’s documentary film about a tragic rape that happened in 2012 in Steubenville, OH. The crime gained national attention because it was the first assault broadcast on social media and changed our understanding of what going viral meant in the age of the internet 2.0.It blew the lid off what has been the country’s inability to grapple with our own complicity in creating a culture where young men casually assume the role of predator, and many young women are left to fend for themselves in harms’ way as friends, institutions and supposed trusted systems fail them. Nora and I delve into the intricate circumstances of the case: the concept of the perfect victim not being the perfect victim, how rigid gender roles contributed to the crime, and the phenomenon of slut-shaming. We ask the question is there a role for restorative justice in these cases and determined that if anyone’s child is to be safe, all children must be safe. And lastly, how do we break open the destructive “boys will be boys” mentality in our society that oftentimes rewards or excuses the idea that real manhood is rooted in dominating other people. It wasn’t an easy conversation, but a necessary one where we sought answers and understanding, not blame.

Zak Sandler and I have a deeply personal and contemplative conversation about the struggles he has faced with his mental health and how he has managed to organize his life with a brain that functions in a different way. From his original diagnosis as bipolar while an undergraduate student at Yale University, to becoming a highly creative Broadway pianist for such shows as Wicked and The Color Purple, Zak has traveled the road from despair to acceptance and now to allowing his creativity to guide his response to his diagnosis. Zak will tell you that he does not have a mental illness or a disorder. For him that language implies there’s something about him that needs to be fixed. He chooses the phrase mental condition, because it indicates that his bipolar diagnosis is simply part of who he is. At core he is not broken. This distinction is how we move from shame to understanding and hopefully acceptance. That our differences, no matter how acute, are simply that - differences not deficiencies.

“Should we attempt to foster meaningful, human connections and engagement in the workplace?” This is the core question of my conversation with author, keynote speaker and workplace belonging expert Smiley Poswolsky. But our conversation in many ways isn’t about work, or the devastating financial implications of the epidemic disengagement of the workforce today. At core, our conversation is about what type of world do we want to live in; do we want a world of connection and engagement, or do we not? Your perspective and views on this question impact everything in our society, from work to play, from church to school, from whom we choose to value to whom we choose to forget. It is THE animating question of our time and our ongoing question about what is good citizenship. What is good humanity? The answers will either bring us closer together or further stoke the flames of division and misunderstanding. On a basic, fundamental level it comes back to the "house divided" principle: we stand together, or we fall together.

Carl Sferrazza Anthony has done the impossible. In his new book Camera Girl, The Coming of Age of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy, he has told the often forgotten and sometimes misunderstood origin story of a woman, who accurately described herself as the art director of the 20th Century. In his latest book, Sferrazza Anthony dramatically captures her subversiveness, her incisive and self-deprecating wit, and her passion for the power of language and words that was sparked by her time studying at the Sorbonne in Paris and traveling throughout Europe. As we dive deep into his work I learn that more than being John Kennedy’s widow or becoming Jackie O., Sferrazza Anthony paints a portrait of woman who, like we the reader are today, was a multidimensional chameleon, and an ever-evolving human being.

Jimmy T. Martin lost his first wife, Linmarie to cancer. She was only 29 when she died, leaving him heartbroken and lost, but with the dream of a business called Brrrn. She said it was the proudest thing that he created that she wouldn’t live to see. With the help of his family, his friends, therapy and his wry sense of humor, Jimmy was slowly able to rebuild a life for himself, and with his business partner Johnny Adammic find a way to bring Brrrn to life, not once, but twice. This story does have a happy ending. He finds new love with Rachel who eventually becomes his wife, he builds a transforming business, and there is even a son. But there is also the wisdom of experience and loss that filters through his life that you cannot help but see, hear, and feel. More than giving up and feeling sorry for himself, Jimmy leaves us with compelling questions in our conversation. Questions that he had to answer for himself when he had to choose to live or to give up. He asks: What are the prompts in your life that are calling you to take action. To do something different? To make a different choice? To choose life? What actions are the prompts in your life calling you to take?

Hugh Huffaker is serial entrepreneur who follows the passions within him to guide his choices in business, and as you will hear, in his life. He is the Founder of Cause+Medic a consciously crafted CBD luxury wellness product line that he created to help relieve his mother’s legs spasms that she was experiencing from Multiple Sclerosis. And he co-founded Clean Republic, an EPA certified disinfectant that harnesses the power of nature and technology into cleaning products. That’s in addition to owning his own spa in Bueno Vista, CO, his pursuits as a jazz guitarist, and at one point – working as an accountant. His life and career journey have been a series of taking risks, listening to his unique internal voice as an entrepreneur, and not being afraid to fail. His success, according to Hugh, is based upon his ability to keep an open heart and say yes to the unplanned and unexpected events that always appear in our lives. As for that failure, Hugh believes we shouldn’t fear it because it is inevitable in business (and in life). And more than a source of embarrassment or regret, he views failure as a tool for learning. He says, “Everybody questions everything when you start a business. You’re going to get questioned and you’re going to fail. But the failure’s good because you’re going to keep learning.”