Authbition

Libby Shively McAvoy has rebuilt her life more than once, and now she helps other people do the same. She's a certified relationship and trauma recovery coach who specializes in emotional intelligence, a yoga teacher, an editor at Dancing Elephants Press on Medium, and the author of three books, including Just Start Theory.

In this episode, Andrew and Libby talk about closing a yoga studio and starting over, the real difference between coaching and therapy, writing as a way to find the people who need you, and how a yoga practice changes as you do.

Then they play the Whole Mind Game on authenticity and ambition, the two words this show is named for, and land on being ourselves, rising with curiosity, and making the greatest impact we can.

Find Libby: https://libbyshivelymcavoy.com

Dancing Elephants Press: https://medium.com/dancing-elephants-press

Ty Hagler has spent his career protecting fragile ideas long enough for them to matter. He's an industrial designer, the founder of Trig, a Chapel Hill design and innovation firm built on a 100-year vision, and the COO of Couplet Care, whose hospital bassinet lets new moms reach their babies without a second person in the room.

Before any of that, he was a world-ranked flatwater kayaker who went from moving print ads down a wall at Home Depot to building its first innovation department.

In this episode, Andrew and Ty trace that path: a fertilizer spreader idea that got shut down and showed up at a competitor years later, starting a design firm in the 2008 downturn, and why Couplet Care chose grant funding and mission-aligned investors over the venture capital math. Along the way: loop A and loop B thinking with AI, building a second brain, and why early adopters deserve hero status.

Then they play the Whole Mind Game on Focus & Openness and land somewhere neither of them expected: the complete day, the Lonely Inventor, and life as a dance instead of a line.

Find Ty and Trig: https://www.trig.com

The Couplet Care Bassinet story: https://www.trig.com/case-studies/couplet-care-design-development

Abby Paradis has been seeing something her whole life that she's never had the words for. Not a metaphor, an actual visual field, moving, wobbling, telling her when something is off before she can explain why. She thought everyone had it until she found out they didn't. Then a concussion took something else from her entirely, the ability to explain any of it at all.

Etienne Nichols has spent his career turning "just networking" into something real: moderating panels for founders and CEOs, connecting strangers who turned out to need exactly what the other had, and building genuine relationships with everyone from dock control clerks to Fortune 500 executives, all without ever pulling rank. He's a mechanical engineer turned manufacturing engineer turned project manager turned podcast host, and today he hosts the Global Medical Device Podcast powered by Greenlight Guru (https://www.greenlight.guru/podcast-2).

In this episode, Andrew and Etienne trade stories from years in medical device development (a cursed cubicle, a near-disaster on the manufacturing floor, a standoff with document control, and the moment a genuine relationship saved a $120,000 piece of equipment) while digging into what actually makes someone good at building relationships: curiosity, humility, and forgetting yourself long enough to really help people.

Along the way: why "table stakes" competence never differentiates you, why so many medical device startups fail by assuming they already understand the unmet need, whether MedTech needs something like a professional engineering license, and an original question about AI-driven health prognostics. Does anyone account for the nocebo effect?

Find Etienne and his own show, the Global Medical Device Podcast powered by Greenlight Guru: https://www.greenlight.guru/podcast-2

also on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7nfczYvxM5svHZMdpxpFPe

"If this isn't Authbition, I don't know what is."

Episode 50. No script, no pre-recorded intro, recorded the day Andrew and Abby got back from 11 weeks living in an Airstream through The New York Finger Lakes, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, and Western Maryland. 

A box of notecards, designed by collaborator Stefanie Morejon, was waiting on the porch when they arrived home. They open it live and decide: this is the one.

From there it goes places neither of them planned: big box stores and public health, a lifelong fear of abandonment, twelve years of living abroad. Then, for the first time, Stefanie takes over and leads the Whole Mind Game. Topic: Convenience and Struggle. It lands on Fortunate Resilience, a phrase of possibility neither of them saw coming.

Fifty episodes in, Andrew shares the vision: Authbition is more than a podcast. It's a movement.

Contains explicit language.

Matthew A. Bamberg is a writer, photographer, educator, and author of Coconut Grove Chronicles, a work of autofiction rooted in his wild childhood in 1970s Miami.

In this episode of Authbition, Matthew and I talk about writing, memory, self-publishing, Medium, editors, rejection, and the courage it takes to share your work before it feels perfect.

Matthew shares how he turned stories from Coconut Grove into autofiction, found community through Medium, navigated the long and sometimes frustrating self-publishing process, and kept going until his work found its audience.

We also talk about growing up gay in Florida during the Anita Bryant era, the blurry line between truth and fiction, the power of critical feedback, and why it is never too late to become the writer you were always becoming.

If you’re a writer, artist, innovator, entrepreneur, late bloomer, or anyone trying to bring a deeply personal project into the world, this conversation is for you.

Where you can find Matthew:

https://www.matthewbamberg.com/

In this episode of Authbition, Andrew DiMeo talks with Tom Place, co-owner of Outbound Lighting, about building a small business without chasing growth at all costs.

The conversation begins with a simple phrase from an Outbound Lighting marketing post on Facebook that genuinely caught Andrew’s eye: don’t be a dick. From there, Andrew and Tom explore what it means to run a company with kindness, honesty, and long-term trust at the center.

Tom shares the story of his path from engineering at NC State, to working with LEDs at Cree, to helping build Outbound Lighting into a rider-focused company known for high-performance bike lights and unusually human customer support.

Together, they talk about entrepreneurship, product design, career choices, customer trust, mountain biking, and the hidden cost of treating every business decision like a spreadsheet problem.

This is a conversation about bicycles and lights, but it is also about something bigger: what business can look like when the goal is not just to grow, flip, and cash out, but to build something useful, honest, and worth standing behind.

Find Outbound Lighting Here:

https://www.outboundlighting.com/

In this episode of Authbition, Andrew DiMeo is joined by Dharna Ashar, a writer, yoga instructor, former flight attendant, and new Medium writer based in Dubai.

Dharna describes her life as many lives in one. She began in aviation, serving passengers at 40,000 feet, traveling the world, and learning how little we truly control. From there, her path moved through motherhood, yoga teacher training in India, teaching in Dubai and France, and eventually writing as a way to reflect on the many experiences that shaped her.

The conversation explores what yoga really teaches beyond the mat: presence, humility, patience, non-comparison, breath, service, and the practice of returning to oneself. Dharna shares stories from intense yoga training in India, where meditation was difficult, uncomfortable, hot, buggy, and anything but peaceful at first — until practice slowly changed what was possible.

Andrew and Dharna also play The Whole Mind Game on the tension between Observe and Absorb. Together, they explore what it means to care deeply without carrying everything, to witness pain without losing yourself inside it, and to stay open-hearted without becoming depleted.

This is a conversation about travel, teaching, motherhood, spirituality, writing, human connection, and the wisdom that comes from living many lives and reflecting on them honestly.

Where to find Dharna’s writing on Medium:

https://medium.com/@fromSky2Soul

In this solo episode of Authbition, Andrew DiMeo records from the quiet engineering quad at NC State University during a Saturday bike ride on Mother’s Day weekend.

What begins as a test of a new mobile recording setup becomes a more personal behind-the-scenes episode about listener feedback, building Authbition into something bigger than a podcast, and returning to the roots of the show: reading essays out loud.

Andrew shares the story behind his essay, “The Biggest Criminal of Your Mind Is in Your Pocket,” a provocative reflection on cognitive offloading, GPS, smartphones, AI, memory, brain health, and the skills we may be losing without noticing.

The episode explores the tension between useful technology and overdependence, asking what happens when we let devices do the thinking before our minds have had the chance to grow.

Along the way, Andrew reflects on:

• Recording from NC State, where he taught for 12 years
• Feedback from listeners about the future of Authbition
• Why he plans to read more of his own essays again
• Building Authbition as a movement, not just a show
• Cognitive offloading, dementia, GPS, calculators, CAD, and AI
• Why getting lost, drawing by hand, playing music, and remembering phone numbers might still matter
• The difference between using tools and surrendering our minds to them

Read the essay for free with this Friend Link:
https://medium.com/ai-ai-oh/the-biggest-criminal-of-your-mind-is-in-your-pocket-ff610b52c00f?sk=4e9de44905f57504818cc86e05d162d2

In this episode of Authbition, Andrew DiMeo sits down with Joanna Gaertner—ICF credentialed life coach, founder of Yoga Off Mat, and lead at Homebody Yoga in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Together they explore Joanna’s journey from New York to Raleigh, her path into coaching, the power of yoga beyond the mat, and why awareness is often the first step toward meaningful change.

The conversation moves through mentorship, healing, personal growth, fear, trust, and what it means to live with greater alignment.

They also play The Whole Mind Game on the tension between Fear and Trust.

What begins as a familiar opposition opens into something deeper:

• Fear can create safety, preparation, learning, and energy.

• Trust can create connection, integrity, creativity, and courage.

• The “best of the best” became: Creative Awareness.

This is a thoughtful conversation about growth, embodiment, and learning how to trust life without losing wisdom.

Find Joanna Gaertner:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joannagaertner/
Homebody Yoga (Raleigh): https://homebodync.com/

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