Cool Hand Dross

Veteran educator, wrestling coach, father, and author Michael Blanchard joins Cool Hand Dross for a conversation about youth sports, coaching, parenting, leadership, competition, character, and what kids actually need from the adults around them.

Michael is the author of The Path Forward: Youth Sports and More, a book that examines the culture surrounding youth athletics and asks an important question: What are youth sports really supposed to be about?

Winning matters. Competition matters. But so do growth, resilience, discipline, confidence, teamwork, and learning how to handle adversity.

In this episode, Scott and Michael dig into what happens when those priorities get out of balance—when pressure builds, parents become too invested in outcomes, coaches lose perspective, and the scoreboard starts to matter more than the kids playing the game.

Drawing from years in education, wrestling, coaching, and parenting three boys, Michael shares his perspective on how adults can create a healthier, more meaningful sports experience for young athletes.

They talk about:

• The purpose of youth sports

• Coaching young athletes

• Parenting athletes without adding unnecessary pressure

• Winning versus long-term development

• Building character through competition

• Leadership and accountability

• Wrestling and the lessons it teaches

• Handling failure, setbacks, and adversity

• The role of parents and coaches in athlete development

• Keeping youth sports focused on the kids

• And how adults can occasionally remember to behave themselves in the bleachers

At its best, youth sports can teach lessons that last far beyond the final whistle. But that only happens when the adults involved keep the bigger picture in mind.

Michael Blanchard, author of The Path Forward: Youth Sports and More on Cool Hand Dross.

Cool Hand Dross explores mental health, books, culture, life, reinvention, and the stories and experiences that shape who we become.

#YouthSports #YouthSportsParenting #Coaching #Parenting #SportsParenting #Wrestling #AthleteDevelopment #Leadership #CharacterDevelopment #SportsCulture #Education #CoolHandDross 

Americans are reading less, literacy scores are declining, and our attention is increasingly shaped by algorithms, short-form content, and constant digital distraction.

In this solo episode of Cool Hand Dross, we revisit the idea that reading is now an act of rebellion, not because books are disappearing, but because deep reading, critical thinking, and independent thought are becoming harder to protect.

The episode explores the decline of reading in America, falling literacy and reading-proficiency levels, the difference between basic literacy and critical literacy, and why authoritarian systems have historically benefited from controlling information and limiting independent thought.

We also look at what reading gives us that scrolling does not: patience, reflection, concentration, intellectual friction, and the ability to sit with complicated ideas before reacting.

And this isn’t a call to read difficult books just to prove a point. The challenge is much simpler: find something you genuinely enjoy, put the phone down, create twenty quiet minutes, and read.

In this episode:

• America’s declining reading and literacy trends

• Why critical thinking matters in a democracy

• Reading, propaganda, and independent thought

• How algorithms compete for our attention

• Why deep reading can be meditative

• The importance of reading for pleasure

• Helping kids become lifelong readers

• AI, information overload, and the growing value of judgment

• How to rebuild a reading habit without turning it into homework

Reading is not just about books. It is about protecting your attention, curiosity, and ability to think for yourself.

Entrepreneur, brand strategist, educator, and workforce futurist Salim Holder joins Cool Hand Dross for a wide-ranging conversation about AI, the future of work, career reinvention, entrepreneurship, education, mental health, and culture.

Salim is the Founder and CEO of The New Trade Program, a career school designed to prepare people for high-demand careers in artificial intelligence, digital marketing, and cybersecurity through hands-on, apprentice-based learning.

Before launching The New Trade Program, Salim built major consumer brands in corporate America and co-founded 4th Ave Market, one of the largest Black-owned online hair and beauty retail platforms in the United States.

In this episode, we explore the common thread running through Salim’s career: creating opportunity, building ownership, developing practical skills, and helping people navigate a rapidly changing workforce.

We also dig into one of the biggest questions facing workers today: As AI transforms industries and traditional career paths, will employers increasingly care less about where you went to school—and more about what you can actually do?

Along the way, Salim and Scott talk about:

• AI and the future of work

• Careers in digital marketing and cybersecurity

• Skills-based education and apprenticeships

• Entrepreneurship and brand building

• Career pivots and professional reinvention

• Mental health and personal growth

• Books and lifelong learning

• Culture and changing expectations around work

• Building opportunities outside the traditional college pathway

• And a riveting True Tale from the Mason Jar

It’s a conversation about adapting, learning, building, and creating opportunity in a world where technology is rewriting the rules.

Salim Holder, Founder & CEO of The New Trade Program, on Cool Hand Dross.

Cool Hand Dross explores mental health, books, culture, life, reinvention, and the strange stories we collect along the way.

#SalimHolder #FutureOfWork #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #CareerDevelopment #CareerReinvention #Cybersecurity #DigitalMarketing #Entrepreneurship #WorkforceDevelopment #SkillsBasedLearning #Education #MentalHealth #Podcast #CoolHandDross

What happens when the life you planned suddenly becomes the life you never expected?

On Episode 43 of Cool Hand Dross, we sit down with Siobhan Cleveland, entrepreneur, restaurateur, former New York fashion executive, and owner of Naples institution The Real Macaw.

Siobhan built her career in the New York fashion world, eventually serving as Director of Wholesale for Roller Rabbit, before returning home to Naples, Florida. After the passing of her mother, Jeanne Harvey—who founded The Real Macaw in 1991—Siobhan found herself taking responsibility for preserving a family business, a legacy, and a place deeply connected to the Naples community.

And that legacy comes with some incredible stories.

Jeanne once dated Peter Green, co-founder of Fleetwood Mac, and during an extraordinary chapter of her life became friends with—and lived among members of—Pink Floyd and Fleetwood Mac. Those experiences became part of the larger-than-life story and spirit Siobhan inherited along with The Real Macaw.

Then came Hurricane Ian.

Several feet of storm surge devastated the restaurant in 2022, forcing Siobhan and her team to rebuild once again—physically, professionally, and personally.

This conversation goes well beyond restaurants and entrepreneurship. Scott and Siobhan talk about mental health, books and creativity, culture, career reinvention, family legacy, resilience, rebuilding after loss, rock-and-roll history, and the strange turns that eventually shape a life.

From Manhattan fashion to a tropical Naples landmark—and from stories involving Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd to rebuilding after one of Florida’s most destructive hurricanes—this is a conversation about adapting when the plan changes and finding a way to keep moving forward.

Cool Hand Dross | Episode 43

Siobhan Cleveland • The Real Macaw • Entrepreneurship • Resilience • Reinvention • Naples, Florida • Hurricane Ian • Fleetwood Mac • Pink Floyd • Peter Green • Family Business • Mental Health • Creativity

Grief, anticipatory grief, fatherhood, and the bittersweet reality of watching your children grow up.

In Episode 42, Cool Hand Dross reflects on the passing of his mother-in-law, Stella, the emotional exhaustion of loss, and the complicated grieving process. From sadness and relief to finding moments of happiness during difficult times, CHD explores why grief doesn't follow a predictable timeline.

The conversation shifts to UCF Parent Weekend, where CHD and his wife experience the joy of seeing their son thrive in college—and the unexpected emotions that come with parenting an increasingly independent young adult.

With old-school humor and personal reflection, we exlpore changing family relationships, letting go, navigating life's transitions, and finding your footing when everything feels uncertain.

Sometimes grief and gratitude coexist. Sometimes showing up is enough.

An honest conversation about family, loss, fatherhood, and moving forward.

Keep moving.

Hospice care, anticipatory grief, caregiving, mortality, family, and end-of-life dignity take center stage in one of Cool Hand Dross’s most personal episodes yet.

As his family navigates home hospice and end-of-life care for a loved one, Cool Hand Dross steps away from the usual format for a brief, unscripted reflection on what it means to accompany someone through the final stage of life.

He discusses the emotional reality of family caregiving, the extraordinary compassion of hospice nurses, friends, and relatives coming together during crisis, and why having your financial, legal, and end-of-life affairs in order is one of the greatest gifts you can leave your family.

The experience has also raised bigger questions about the sanctity of life, personal health, aging, mortality, peaceful passing, autonomy, and death with dignity.

There are no easy answers here, just an honest conversation from the middle of a difficult experience.

For anyone navigating hospice, caring for an aging parent or loved one, anticipatory grief, end-of-life decisions, or the loss of someone close, this episode is about being present when life becomes fragile and reconsidering what really matters.

Topics include: hospice care, home hospice, end-of-life care, caregiving, anticipatory grief, grief and loss, hospice nurses, aging parents, family caregiving, mortality, health, peaceful passing, death with dignity, end-of-life planning, compassion, and personal growth.

Blood Meridian Deep Dive: Cormac McCarthy, Judge Holden & International Stomach Issues

Former Green Beret and entrepreneur Eli returns to Cool Hand Dross for a deep dive into Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, Judge Holden, violence, philosophy, McCarthy’s language, and why the novel remains so disturbing and difficult to shake.

Eli experienced the Blood Meridian audiobook for the first time, while CHD returned to the novel for his second read, giving the listeners two very different ways into McCarthy’s brutal masterpiece. They also get into Be the Book Club, audiobooks versus reading, psychology, life experience, and Costa Rica and the Philippines.

If you’re into Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian analysis, great books, military experiences, psychology, travel, and honest long-form conversation, Episode 40 is for you.

Blood Meridian Deep Dive: Cormac McCarthy, Judge Holden & International Stomach Issues | Ep. 40

Episode 39 is raw, unfiltered, and completely improvised.

This week, CHD talks about the strange reality of telling true stories while protecting the people inside them, his first impressions of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, upcoming doctor appointments and the reminder that the body rarely lets us ignore what matters, and one unexpected realization as schools reopen across the country: CHD does not miss teaching.

No script. No polished transitions. Just an honest free-flow conversation about books, health, identity, aging, work, reinvention, privacy, and the madness of trying to make sense of life while you are still living it.

If you enjoy candid conversations about mental health, literature, personal growth, career change, creativity, and the uncomfortable parts of being human, welcome to Cool Hand Dross.

Episode 39: Even Flow, Free 

This week, Michelle and I dropped our son Dalton off at college and suddenly eighteen years of parenting came down to one difficult, beautiful moment: trusting that we gave him the tools to step into adulthood on his own.

In this episode of Cool Hand Dross, I reflect on the bittersweet reality of college move-in day, the fear and freedom that come with letting go, and one unavoidable truth: the only constant is change.

I also dig into a phrase that has become increasingly important in my own life: Compassionate Consistency. The idea that real growth rarely happens through dramatic transformations. It happens quietly, through small decisions, patience, discipline, returning after setbacks, and learning to recognize progress that may be almost invisible while it’s happening.

At 55, while Dalton begins his next chapter, I’m confronting one of my own: redefining work, creativity, health, purpose, and what I want the next ten years of my life to look like. There’s no orientation, no campus map, and no guaranteed path forward,Move In Day, and Compassionate Consistency | Episode 38 just the decision to keep showing up.

Plus, a look ahead at what’s coming to Cool Hand Dross: Eli Capel returns to discuss Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, we continue Be the Book Club with Lolita, and upcoming conversations include writer and community-builder Siobhan Cleveland, entrepreneur and educator Salim Holder, and a future college-life check-in with Dalton and one of his roommates. The entire Cool Hand Dross catalog is also headed to YouTube.

Change is inevitable. Growth is slower. Compassionate consistency is how we stay in the game.

If the show resonates with you, follow, rate, review, and share Cool Hand Dross with someone who might need a little shelter from the modern-day storm.

What keeps us moving when the world around us or the world inside us starts to feel unbearable?

In Episode 37 of Cool Hand Dross, Scott explores two seemingly different stories that wrestle with the same question: HBO’s The Sopranos and Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road.

We look at Tony Soprano’s depression, anxiety, panic attacks, therapy, and emotional isolation, and why James Gandolfini’s portrayal of a powerful man quietly struggling with his mental health was so groundbreaking. Tony has money, family, status and power—yet something inside him is collapsing.

Then we travel into the devastated world of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, where a father and son have almost nothing left except each other, their determination to survive, and the idea of “carrying the fire.”

One man has almost everything and struggles to find meaning.

The other has almost nothing and knows exactly what matters.

This episode explores:

• Tony Soprano, depression and the hidden face of male mental health

• James Gandolfini’s remarkable portrayal of anxiety, loneliness and emotional pain

• Therapy, panic attacks and the difference between self-awareness and real change

• Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and the father-son relationship at its center

• “Carrying the fire” as a metaphor for hope, humanity and perseverance

• Finding purpose when life changes, plans disappear, and the road ahead becomes uncertain

• Why sometimes the goal isn’t figuring out your entire life—it’s simply taking the next step

Most of us live somewhere between Tony Soprano and the father walking down McCarthy’s road.

We lose people. Jobs change. Relationships change. We get older. We lose versions of ourselves. And sometimes we wonder what the hell we’re doing.

Maybe we don't need to see the entire road.

Maybe we just need something worth carrying.

Keep moving. Carry the fire.

🎙️ Cool Hand Dross Podcast — Episode 37Mental Health | Books | Culture | Storytelling | Life

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