Celebrate Your Story

At 23, Amy Morin lost her mother unexpectedly. Three years later, her 26-year-old husband died of a heart attack. Even as a trained therapist, Amy found herself questioning everything she thought she knew about grief and finding the strength to carry on.

In this episode of Celebrate Your Story, I sit down with Amy, a bestselling author and TEDx speaker, to explore how those experiences transformed her understanding of mental strength and inspired her to help millions of people navigate life's challenges.

Amy shares what she learned about living with loss and finding joy again. We also discuss the important role relationships play in helping us through difficult times, and why maintaining those connections requires effort, especially when life gets busy.

Our conversation turns to the small daily habits that build mental strength over time. Amy offers advice for managing anxiety and explains how our mindset can influence the way we respond to uncertainty, including the changes AI is bringing to our lives and workplaces.

Toward the end of the episode, Amy shares a question she asks herself every day: "What did I do today to grow mentally stronger?"

It's a question worth asking ourselves. As Amy's story illustrates, mental strength develops through the choices we make each day, giving us greater confidence to face life's challenges and appreciate its good moments.

Jackie Quan spent 25 years in oncology drug development, working alongside scientists, physicians, and clinical teams on some of the hardest problems in medicine.

Over those years, she noticed a pattern: The highest-performing teams were often the ones where people knew how to help one another. They handled conflict constructively and built environments where everyone could do their best work.

Prompted by that observation, Jackie began bringing the same rigor she had applied to clinical research to questions about happiness. She's since read thousands of research papers in search of evidence for what helps people and teams flourish.

In this episode of Celebrate Your Story, we explore the question at the center of her work: what helps human beings thrive? We look at what happiness really means, whether it can be measured, and why mindfulness and self-awareness may be among our most important skills, for leaders and teams alike.

Jennifer Wallace has spent years studying that question and what she discovered may change the way we think about parenting, success, relationships and even our own lives.

In this conversation, Jennifer explains why mattering goes deeper than belonging. It's about feeling valued for who you are while also having the opportunity to add value to the people and communities around you. We talk about the pressure young people face to build the perfect resume, why achievement can sometimes become a fragile sense of identity, and why children need to know their worth isn't something they have to earn.

Jennifer also shares practical ways families can create a culture where people feel seen and appreciated—from simple family traditions to telling our children what we love about who they are. We talk about social media, loneliness, the search for meaning, homelessness, volunteering and the powerful connection between helping others and discovering our own sense of purpose. At the heart of it all is a simple idea:

The best way to know that you matter may be to help someone else know that they matter too. This is a conversation about meaning, connection, family and the stories we tell the people we love about who they are.

What happens when the career you thought would last forever suddenly disappears?

Marysol Castro knows. She lost jobs, raised two boys as the sole provider, and found herself wondering what came next. In this episode of Celebrate Your Story, Marysol and I talk about the setbacks that forced her to reinvent herself and the relationships that helped her through them. We also discuss 0the importance of staying open when you don't know where the path is leading.

Marysol has spent more than 25 years in broadcasting, including stops at CBS News, ESPN, and WPIX. Along the way, she learned something I believe deeply: Relationships matter. People she met years earlier would reappear at important moments, offering encouragement and sometimes seeing possibilities in her that she couldn't yet see herself.

Then came a call she never expected. The New York Mets wanted her to audition as their public address announcer. She got the job, becoming the first woman to hold the role, and faced plenty of criticism as she learned it. During that first season, a young girl came to her booth with a sign congratulating her on being the first. Marysol remembers thinking, "That's why I'm here."

Today, she calls being the voice of the Mets "the best job on the planet," while continuing to build the next chapter of her career around storytelling and women in sports.

Marysol's story is proof that our careers rarely follow a straight line. Sometimes you have to keep moving before you know exactly where you're going, trusting the relationships you've built and the experiences you've collected to help you find what comes next.

Alex Rodriguez knows what it means to reach the top. Over 22 years in Major League Baseball, he became a World Series champion and one of the most recognizable athletes of his generation.

But his story didn't end when his baseball career did. In this week's Celebrate Your Story, Alex talks about the two B's that have shaped his life — baseball and business — and how the lessons he learned as an athlete have influenced the entrepreneur and investor he is today.

We talk about building great teams, performing under pressure, investing in founders, choosing the right people, and why relationships can be one of our greatest competitive advantages. Then the conversation goes deeper.

Alex opens up about failure, mental health, therapy, and the mistakes that changed the course of his life. He shares how one of his most difficult periods forced him to become more self-aware, let go of some of his ego, and reconsider what success really means.

Today, Alex says his baseball legacy may not be the one he once imagined. But what he went through helped him become a better father, friend, and partner — and gave him a different perspective on the person he wants to be.

For years, Dr. James Ellis treated patients who were doing everything they were supposed to do, yet some still weren't getting better. The clinical psychologist noticed something important: The people who struggled most often lacked the strong social connections that others had. That realization changed the way he practiced.

In this episode of Celebrate Your Story, James and I explore why relationships are so fundamental to our physical and emotional health, why our social networks require more attention as we get older, and why men need to be more deliberate about maintaining friendships.

We also talk about one of my favorite pieces of his advice: Don't worry if you're always the one making the call or organizing dinner. A good relationship doesn't have to be perfectly reciprocal to be valuable. Sometimes being the convener is simply the role you play.

James describes relationships as the bedrock of our evolution. I'd put it more simply: We need each other. And in a world where it has become easy to live, work, shop, and entertain ourselves without interacting with others, maintaining our relationships may require more effort than ever.

Medical breakthroughs rarely happen overnight. They begin with an idea, grow through years of research, and eventually reach the patients whose lives they may change. Andrea Lopez has spent her career helping make that journey possible.

In this week's Celebrate Your Story, Andrea shares how a childhood fascination with medicine led her from Ecuador to New York, where a professor's encouragement opened the door to a career in cancer research. Today, she works at the forefront of CAR T-cell therapy, helping hospitals deliver treatments that harness a patient's immune system to fight cancer.

Our conversation explores what it takes to turn a scientific discovery into a life-changing therapy and how AI is giving researchers new tools to understand complex data. Andrea also reflects on the mentors who shaped her career and explains why she believes the best leaders recognize potential in others before those individuals recognize it themselves.

If you've ever wondered what happens between a breakthrough in the laboratory and a treatment in the hospital, you'll come away from this episode with a deeper appreciation for the people whose work is quietly reshaping the future of medicine.

To mark National Friendship Month, this week's episode of Celebrate Your Story is dedicated to the incredible reflections shared by our Celebrations Pulse community. Spanning decades, these stories show how the bonds we build are often our deepest sources of strength and joy.

The letters include stories about childhood friends who feel like family, the healing power of showing up when life gets tough, and how creative sparks like music can keep people connected over a lifetime. I also share a few thoughts on why authentic human connection will only grow more valuable as AI and remote work redefine our daily routines.

If someone special comes to mind while listening, reach out and share this episode with them. To catch every Celebrate Your Story conversation, be sure to subscribe!

Jason Eichenholz built a remarkable career as a technology entrepreneur, earning more than 85 patents and leading groundbreaking innovations. But his most important work began at home.

Inspired by his son Jonathan, Jason is creating Jonathan's Landing — an inclusive community designed to help adults with autism and other neurodiverse individuals build meaningful careers, live with greater independence, and thrive as valued members of their communities.

In this week's Celebrate Your Story, Jason shares the personal journey behind the project, explains the growing "services cliff" facing families as children with autism reach adulthood, and discusses how entrepreneurship can help solve one of society's most pressing challenges.

It's an inspiring conversation about innovation, purpose, and what becomes possible when business is used to create lasting social impact

Young men are facing unprecedented challenges—from loneliness and anxiety to social media pressure and the loss of meaningful friendships.

Licensed therapist Austin Cole joins Jim McCann for an honest conversation about what is really happening with men's mental health, why relationships matter more than ever, and how parents, friends, and mentors can help the next generation thrive.

Whether you're a parent, mentor, leader, or someone navigating life's challenges, this conversation offers practical insights and hope for building stronger relationships and a healthier future.

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