FINE is a 4-Letter Word

Russ Irwin grew up in a rough neighborhood in Canada with, in his words, no values and no beliefs, only survival. When he turned nine, his father, an alcoholic, began abusing him physically and emotionally. Decades later, Russ learned that nine was the same age his own father had been when his father walked into a London candy store and never came back. By 16, Russ was hardened, angry, and expelled from school, and no high school in the city would take him. "The irony today is I'm a doctor," he says, "but I still don't have a high school diploma."

At 18, after a frightening night with drugs, Russ went to see an uncle he barely knew, with one ground rule: don't mention God. His uncle told him, "Russ, God loves you and wants to be a father to you," and Russ fell off the couch. It was the beginning of a transformation that led him to pastor an inner-city church, and years later to a moment no one could have scripted: a guest speaker's apology that sent Russ straight to his father's kitchen table, and a reconciliation that lasted the rest of his father's life.

But healing, Russ is honest to say, did not happen overnight, and life was not done testing him. In this conversation with Lori, he talks about losing his father, his brother, his wife, and his daughter, how he kept going when people asked how he was still standing, and why he wrote a book that blends neuroscience, faith, and his own story to help people understand that trauma comes off in layers, and that the patterns that once protected us don't have to write the rest of the story.

What You'll Take Away

• Why people who have experienced trauma are not broken and don't need to be fixed; they are wounded and need to be healed

• How trauma pushes the brain into survival mode, and why children so often conclude that something is wrong with them

• How generational trauma can repeat itself, and what it takes to interrupt the cycle

• Why healing rarely happens overnight, and why trauma tends to come off in layers, like an onion

• How one apology, and a willingness to forgive, transformed Russ's relationship with his father for the last decade of his life

Guest Bio

Dr. Russ Irwin is a bestselling author, speaker, and executive coach who for more than two decades has worked at the intersection of human behavior, mental health, and high performance. His perspective is shaped by advanced study, years as a former pastor and university professor in a medical program, his work with individuals, leaders, and organizations through Irwin & Associates, and his own journey through childhood poverty and abuse. He is the author of Breaking the Cycles of Trauma, and his work helps people understand what shaped them without being defined by it.

Chapters & Key Timestamps

00:00 Cold open

01:10 Welcome, and a little Florida Gators football trauma

02:06 Growing up in the projects with no values and no beliefs

02:52 The grandfather who never came back from the candy store

04:53 Age nine: when his father's abuse began

05:54 Why abused children conclude "something is wrong with me"

08:07 Survival mode: why the brain prioritizes survival over growth

09:57 Hardened by 14, expelled at 16

11:30 Why he wrote Breaking the Cycles of Trauma

13:52 Generational trauma, and the same age his father's world broke

16:13 The quote that sparked an existential crisis at 16

17:58 Rock bottom at 18, and a mother's suggestion

19:21 "God loves you and wants to be a father to you"

22:14 Losing his old friends and finding a mentor

22:48 Pastoring an inner-city church that grew from 11 people to 800

24:08 "I really wanted to believe I was fine"

26:50 The guest speaker's apology

28:49 The kitchen-table reconciliation with his father

32:39 Transformational encounters, and why healing takes years

33:28 Losing his father, his brother, and his wife

35:28 His daughter's losses

38:53 Trauma is like an onion

40:03 "How are you standing?" Propped up by grace

43:07 The trauma series that became a book

46:38 His walk-up song: "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2

47:52 Where to find Dr. Russ, and the other Russ Irwin

Resources Mentioned

• Book: Breaking the Cycles of Trauma: How Hidden Patterns Keep You Stuck and What It Takes to Break Free by Dr. Russ Irwin (hardcover, paperback, Kindle, and audiobook) - https://drrussirwin.com/book

• Author: Dr. Gabor Maté, whose work on trauma Russ mentions

• Film: Good Will Hunting, which Russ references when describing the guest speaker's apology

• Walk-up Song: "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2

• Crisis support: If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 (988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the U.S.; 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline in Canada)

Connect With Dr. Russ Irwin

Website: https://drrussirwin.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/russirwin/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.russirwin/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/russ.irwin.52

Book: Breaking the Cycles of Trauma: How Hidden Patterns Keep You Stuck and What It Takes to Break Free - https://drrussirwin.com/book

Irwin & Associates: https://www.irwincoaching.ca/

Searching online? Look for "Dr. Russ Irwin" to find Russ; there is another well-known Russ Irwin, a musician.

Continue With Lori

Website: https://zenrabbit.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Email: [email protected]

Invitation From Lori

Zen Rabbit

This episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit. Trust is the foundation of all great workplaces, and in today's hybrid, fast-moving work culture, it's built through consistent, clear, human communication.

Quarterly town halls, Slack messages, or team-building events are rarely enough to create the connection employees need. That's why forward-thinking companies are hiring Lori to create internal and private podcasts that bring leaders and employees together through authentic stories and real conversations.

Think of it as the old-school company newsletter reinvented for the modern workplace.

If your company wants to strengthen communication, connection, community, and culture, connect with Lori at [email protected] or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Related Conversation

Episode 248: Not From a Nice Family with Diana Keough

Another story of an abusive childhood, a parent's hidden life, and a reconciliation that came late, but in time.

About FINE is a 4-Letter Word

FINE is a 4-Letter Word is the show for leaders who are tired of pretending everything is fine.

We explore what it takes to lead with empathy, vulnerability, gratitude, and courage, especially during the seasons when life and leadership feel anything but fine.

Listen for honest conversations about how human connection influences innovation, retention, leadership, and real impact. New episodes every week.

Follow FINE is a 4-Letter Word

Follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode.

If this conversation gave you something useful to think about, leave a review. Reviews help more people discover the show and join the conversation.

Mark Reynolds took a job on a promise to stay for one year. At the ten-year mark, he looked up and realized he had what he calls "all the trappings of success": good money, reasonable hours, a meaningful mission at a large nonprofit, and plenty of time for his family. He chose the word "trappings" on purpose, because he felt trapped.

A military kid raised on Navy bases from Japan to Iceland, Mark grew up wanting nothing more than to serve, until seizures forced him out of the Army shortly after 9/11. He rebuilt a career in public accounting and consulting, and when that career stopped fitting, he did what high achievers do: he tried harder, prayed harder, and tried to coach himself into gratitude. Then a minor car accident on the way to lunch set off a wave of claustrophobia that ended in a full panic attack in a parking garage, where it took him hours to get out.

In this conversation, Mark tells Lori how obligation can disguise itself as purpose, why grit works until it doesn't, and why he believes high performers are the ones who quit the wrong thing sooner. It's a conversation for anyone whose life looks good on paper but no longer feels like theirs.

What You'll Take Away

• Why success can become a cage, and why you can't force yourself to be happy inside a life that no longer fits
• How obligation can disguise itself as purpose, and why unexamined obligation turns into resentment
• Why grit works until it doesn't, and why a mission does no good if you wear yourself out getting there
• Why Mark says high performers quit the wrong thing sooner, and why "good" can be the enemy of great
• Why purpose is something you choose, not discover, and how it evolves as you do

Guest Bio

Mark Reynolds is an executive business coach, award-winning international speaker, and Army veteran. Raised on Navy bases around the world, he served in Army medicine before building a career in public accounting and consulting, much of it with nonprofit healthcare organizations. He is the author of How to Make Every Day GREAT! and has spent his career helping people get clear on what they actually want, build the skills to get there, and become the kind of person who follows through.

Chapters & Key Timestamps

00:00 Opening and episode premise

01:26 Growing up a Navy kid in Japan, Iceland, and across the U.S.

03:18 Heroes he could touch: flying with his dad on Cold War sub hunts

06:11 Warriors and healers: the two worlds that shaped his path

07:51 "There's a feminine spirit to you"

11:28 Seizures, 9/11, and leaving the military

12:25 The one-year job that lasted ten years

13:20 "All the trappings of success"

14:46 When working harder stops working

15:51 A Porsche engine in a Yugo frame

16:34 A fender bender, claustrophobia, and a panic attack in the parking garage

20:22 How much sacrifice is too much for a mission that matters?

23:47 Purpose is chosen, not discovered

25:49 When obligation turns into resentment

27:57 The resignation lunch, and the HR meeting that made the decision for him

30:34 The first step: honor the nudge

31:48 Good is the enemy of great

32:55 Not getting what you asked for, and getting something better

35:35 Everything grows and moves through cycles

36:26 Why sharing our struggles makes us less alone

37:19 His walk-up song: "You're the Best" by Joe Esposito

38:47 Where to find Mark

39:24 Lori's five takeaways

Resources Mentioned

• Book: How to Make Every Day GREAT! by Mark Reynolds
• Coaching: Reynolds Coaching - https://reynoldscoaching.com
• Walk-up Song: "You're the Best" by Joe Esposito (from The Karate Kid) - https://music.apple.com/us/song/youre-the-best/1440740331

Connect With Mark Reynolds

Website: https://markreynolds.tv

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/successauditor/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/successauditor/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.g.reynolds.3/

Twitter/X: https://x.com/successauditor

Book: How to Make Every Day GREAT!

Coaching: https://reynoldscoaching.com

Mark says LinkedIn is the best place to message him directly.

Continue With Lori

Website: https://zenrabbit.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Email: [email protected]

Invitation From Lori

Zen Rabbit

This episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit. Trust is the foundation of all great workplaces, and in today's hybrid, fast-moving work culture, it's built through consistent, clear, human communication.

Quarterly town halls, Slack messages, or team-building events are rarely enough to create the connection employees need. That's why forward-thinking companies are hiring Lori to create internal and private podcasts that bring leaders and employees together through authentic stories and real conversations.

Think of it as the old-school company newsletter reinvented for the modern workplace.

If your company wants to strengthen communication, connection, community, and culture, connect with Lori at [email protected] or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Related Conversation

Episode 247: The Pause Is the Work with Jobert Abueva

Another leader whose outward success masked burnout until his body forced a pause, and what he rebuilt afterward.

About FINE is a 4-Letter Word

FINE is a 4-Letter Word is the show for leaders who are tired of pretending everything is fine.

We explore what it takes to lead with empathy, vulnerability, gratitude, and courage, especially during the seasons when life and leadership feel anything but fine.

Listen for honest conversations about how human connection influences innovation, retention, leadership, and real impact. New episodes every week.

Follow FINE is a 4-Letter Word

Follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode.

If this conversation gave you something useful to think about, leave a review. Reviews help more people discover the show and join the conversation.

Research & Sources

• "Good is the enemy of great" is the opening line of Jim Collins's book Good to Great (2001); Mark uses it to describe a life full of good things that no longer felt great.
• Mark's statement that high performers "quit the wrong thing quicker than most people" is presented as his own coaching perspective, not as a research finding.

For most of his adult life, Adrian Hale Bishop lived with a quiet, constant question: what happens if people find out? He kept the parts of his life carefully compartmentalized, learned what not to say, and became very, very presentable. For a long time, he thought that was wisdom.

Then, just as a business he had spent 22 years building was about to enter a new era, a sudden health crisis nearly killed him. The business collapsed, he left the life he had built over 12 years in Las Vegas, and he was left, in his words, with a blank slate: his cats, his laptops, and a story about a fictional country he had been carrying in his head since he was 13. During what became a long medical sabbatical, that story finally poured out as three novels, beginning with The Protector & The Heiress.

Adrian returns to the show under his pen name, and he tells Lori why he is no longer willing to confuse privacy with shame. It is a conversation about the energy it takes to live as less than your whole self, why being known is not the same as being exposed, and how fiction can be a sharper mirror for leaders than any business book, from a secret police force reinvented as a pillar of the community to a granddaughter deciding whether she can live inside the machine she inherited.

What You'll Take Away

• Why fear of being "found out" can quietly run your decisions, and what changes when you stop organizing your life around other people's possible reactions

• The difference between privacy and hiding, and what living under two names taught Adrian about authenticity

• Why culture is what people repeatedly experience, not what an organization says about itself, as Ramón's transformation of the National Civic Guard illustrates

• Why succession is about far more than transferring authority, and what Alana inherits when she takes responsibility for something someone else built

• Why the most useful mirror for a leader is sometimes not a business book or framework, but a story in which you recognize yourself

Guest Bio

Adrian Hale Bishop is the pen name of an entrepreneur and consultant who now writes fiction exploring leadership, family, culture, ambition, identity, and the unexpected ways lives intersect. His work blends political fiction, romance, family saga, social observation, and speculative worldbuilding, and he believes the most interesting stories emerge where public lives and private realities meet. His debut novel, The Protector & The Heiress, set in the fictional nation of Balorga, is a sweeping story of family, legacy, ambition, love, and the stories powerful people leave behind.

Chapters & Key Timestamps

00:00 Opening and episode premise

01:20 Welcome to "the man in the haze"

02:45 Two names, one man: why Adrian Hale Bishop is a pen name

03:31 The year the floor blew out: a health crisis and a business collapse

04:49 Who gets to decide what's "conventional"?

05:56 Bullying, escape, and where his tenacity came from

08:09 "I'm done being afraid of being found out"

09:03 The difference between privacy and fear

10:38 Did his body rebel against a divided life?

12:31 Radical permission to be congruent, aligned, and authentic

13:04 What he was afraid would happen, and how it led to fiction

13:31 A medical sabbatical that turned into three novels

14:41 The fictional country he has carried since age 13

16:38 The Protector & The Heiress: power, legacy, and succession

18:53 Multiple realities, one ecosystem

20:10 Fiction as a leadership mirror: Ramón and the National Civic Guard

22:49 Severance, compartmentalizing, and the quest for congruence

24:28 A book that refuses to fit one category

25:34 What he wants readers to take away

28:05 Copy edits, the Oxford comma, and a novel with its own playlist

30:50 You were raised, but you decide how to paint the house

31:35 His hype song: "Close to the Flame" by Benny Mardones

33:04 Where to find Adrian and the world of Balorga

Resources Mentioned

• Book: The Protector & The Heiress by Adrian Hale Bishop (available autumn 2026) - https://www.ProtectorAndHeiressBook.com/

• Substack: Between the Chapters by Adrian Hale Bishop - https://adrianhalebishop.substack.com/

• TV: Severance on Apple TV+ (mentioned by Lori)

• Hype Song: "Close to the Flame" by Benny Mardones - https://open.spotify.com/track/0GrfZV6e1YcUWoiENjncgU

Connect With Adrian Hale Bishop

Website: https://www.AdrianHaleBishop.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adrianhalebishop/

Book: The Protector & The Heiress - https://www.ProtectorAndHeiressBook.com/

Substack: Between the Chapters - https://adrianhalebishop.substack.com/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/adrianhalebishop.bsky.social

Continue With Lori

Website: https://zenrabbit.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Email: [email protected]

Invitation From Lori

Zen Rabbit

This episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit. Trust is the foundation of all great workplaces, and in today's hybrid, fast-moving work culture, it's built through consistent, clear, human communication.

Quarterly town halls, Slack messages, or team-building events are rarely enough to create the connection employees need. That's why forward-thinking companies are hiring Lori to create internal and private podcasts that bring leaders and employees together through authentic stories and real conversations.

Think of it as the old-school company newsletter reinvented for the modern workplace.

If your company wants to strengthen communication, connection, community, and culture, connect with Lori at [email protected] or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

About FINE is a 4-Letter Word

FINE is a 4-Letter Word is the show for leaders who are tired of pretending everything is fine.

We explore what it takes to lead with empathy, vulnerability, gratitude, and courage, especially during the seasons when life and leadership feel anything but fine.

Listen for honest conversations about how human connection influences innovation, retention, leadership, and real impact. New episodes every week.

Follow FINE is a 4-Letter Word

Follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode.

If this conversation gave you something useful to think about, leave a review. Reviews help more people discover the show and join the conversation.

Research & Sources

• Adrian notes that "there's science" showing the emotional and social wounds of a hostile school environment don't simply disappear in adulthood. A large longitudinal study following children into their twenties found that people bullied in childhood had higher rates of anxiety disorders as adults. Source: Copeland, W. E., Wolke, D., Angold, A., & Costello, E. J. (2013). Adult psychiatric outcomes of bullying and being bullied by peers in childhood and adolescence. JAMA Psychiatry, 70(4), 419-426. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/1654916 | NIMH summary: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-updates/2013/bullying-exerts-psychiatric-effects-into-adulthood

Ryan Lavarnway spent ten seasons in Major League Baseball and was called up and sent back down to the minors 26 times over 12 years. He was the slowest player on his high school team, never started a single varsity game at his natural position, and read in old newspaper clippings that every coach he ever had called him both the hardest worker they had seen and an unlikely success.

At 17, desperate to be seen, Ryan raised his hand when his high school coach wondered aloud who would bat fourth. The coach didn't laugh. He asked, "Why not you?" Ryan didn't have an answer, and the doubts that had been running his head suddenly had nowhere to go. That question carried him to Yale, the majors, a World Series ring, and the Olympics with Team Israel.

In this conversation, Ryan tells Lori how he trained the mental side of a career built on uncertainty: controlling what he could control each day, raising the floor instead of the ceiling, refusing to call any goal "unrealistic," and deliberately drafting the people he needs around him. He also shares the one thing he misses now that he has retired: waking up and knowing exactly what a win looks like.

What You'll Take Away

• Why the question "Why not you?" can turn self-doubt into a roadmap of hurdles to clear
• How to raise the floor, not the ceiling: give 100% of what you have on the days you don't feel your best
• Why calling a goal "unrealistic" is the first step toward not reaching it, and what to call it instead
• The six roles worth drafting onto your team: a coach, a peer, a gambler, an analyst, a cheerleader, and a BS meter
• Why life after a scoreboard requires you to decide for yourself what a win looks like today, this month, and this year

Guest Bio

Ryan Lavarnway played ten seasons in Major League Baseball as a catcher after starring at Yale, and is a World Series champion and an Olympian who represented Team Israel at the Tokyo Olympics. Over 12 years he was added to and removed from Major League rosters 26 times, a career he describes as proof that resilience, adaptability, and self-belief can beat the odds. Today he is a keynote speaker, workshop facilitator, and leadership coach who helps teams and individuals unlock their potential. He is also an Ironman, a 90s music fan, a coffee addict, and a proud girl dad.

Chapters & Key Timestamps

00:00 Cold open: 26 call-ups and the question "Why not you?"

01:21 Meeting at the Warrior Defined men's retreat

02:24 How "do your best" became "be the best" in a young athlete's mind

03:45 A father who coached by asking Ryan to teach him

05:00 From catcher to the slowest outfielder, and back again

07:03 Every coach called him the hardest worker, and an unlikely success

08:40 The mental side of being sent down 26 times

10:01 Control what you can control today

11:43 Raise the floor, not the ceiling

12:29 The high school coach who asked, "Why not you?"

15:04 Keep the goal audacious, make the next step small

16:59 Why you should never call your goal unrealistic

18:56 Draft your team: coach, peer, gambler, analyst, cheerleader, BS meter

21:42 Letting people be who they naturally are for you

25:16 Going after the Olympic opportunity instead of waiting for it

26:31 New North Stars: husband, father, and life after baseball

27:17 What he misses most: knowing what a win is

28:51 A career's worth of walk-up songs

30:15 Where to find Ryan

30:46 Lori's five takeaways

Resources Mentioned

• Book: The Way of Excellence: A Guide to True Greatness and Deep Satisfaction in a Chaotic World by Brad Stulberg - https://www.bradstulberg.org/p/the-way-of-excellence
• Book: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill (mentioned by Lori)
• Research: Goal-setting research by Locke, Shaw, Saari, and Latham (see Research & Sources)
• Walk-up Songs: "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison and "Head & Heart" by Joel Corry featuring MNEK (his two most frequent); others over the years included "What I Like About You" by The Romantics, "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas, "What It's Like" by Everlast, "Summertime" by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, and "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder

Connect With Ryan Lavarnway

Website: https://ryanlavarnway.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-lavarnway/

Ryan is available for keynote speaking, workshops, and leadership coaching. Reach out through his website or LinkedIn.

Continue With Lori

Website: https://zenrabbit.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Email: [email protected]

Invitation From Lori

Zen Rabbit

This episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit. Trust is the foundation of all great workplaces, and in today's hybrid, fast-moving work culture, it's built through consistent, clear, human communication.

Quarterly town halls, Slack messages, or team-building events are rarely enough to create the connection employees need. That's why forward-thinking companies are hiring Lori to create internal and private podcasts that bring leaders and employees together through authentic stories and real conversations.

Think of it as the old-school company newsletter reinvented for the modern workplace.

If your company wants to strengthen communication, connection, community, and culture, connect with Lori at [email protected] or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Related Conversation

Episode 243: The Fire Pit Confession That Rebuilt His Life with Henry Tolbert

Another conversation about resilience, rebuilding after a setback, and the people who help you get back up.

About FINE is a 4-Letter Word

FINE is a 4-Letter Word is the show for leaders who are tired of pretending everything is fine.

We explore what it takes to lead with empathy, vulnerability, gratitude, and courage, especially during the seasons when life and leadership feel anything but fine.

Listen for honest conversations about how human connection influences innovation, retention, leadership, and real impact. New episodes every week.

Follow FINE is a 4-Letter Word

Follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode.

If this conversation gave you something useful to think about, leave a review. Reviews help more people discover the show and join the conversation.

Research & Sources

• Ryan cites a "Harvard Business Review study" showing that people with a high, specific goal "perform 90% better" than those with a vague intention. The figure most often cited comes from a review of goal-setting research by Locke, Shaw, Saari, and Latham (1981), which found that specific, challenging goals led to higher performance than easy or "do your best" goals in roughly 90% of the studies reviewed. The 90% refers to how consistently the effect appeared, not to the size of the improvement. Source: Locke, E. A., Shaw, K. N., Saari, L. M., & Latham, G. P. (1981). Goal setting and task performance: 1969-1980. Psychological Bulletin, 90(1), 125-152. Summary: https://www.mindtools.com/azazlu3/lockes-goal-setting-theory/
• "Raise the floor" is a concept Ryan attributes to Brad Stulberg's book The Way of Excellence.
• Career facts (Yale; MLB 2011 to 2021; Team Israel at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, held in 2021) checked against https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Lavarnway

In 1988, Diana Keough came home for Christmas for the first time in three years. She was married, she had a six-month-old baby, and she was determined to finally build the kind of relationship with her mother she had watched her friends enjoy. Within weeks, her family learned that her father, a trial attorney and pillar of a fundamentalist Baptist community, had AIDS and had been living a double life for 27 years. Three weeks later, her mother tested positive for HIV.

Diana was trained as a journalist, so she did what journalists do. With her mother's permission, she dropped a tape recorder into her purse before her mother confronted her father in the hospital, and she kept recording. Over the next six years she gathered more than 100 hours of interviews with both parents, their caregivers, and her mother's psychiatrist, trying to understand the people who had raised her inside so many secrets.

In this conversation, Diana tells Lori what it took to forgive a mother who had been cruel, to keep loving a father who had been her North Star and had also lied, and to reconcile with five siblings who split into Team Mom and Team Dad and went years without speaking. It is a conversation about truth-telling, the grace families rarely offer each other in a crisis, and why she ultimately decided her story had no victims and no villains.

What You'll Take Away

• Why Diana started recording her parents in 1988, and what 100 hours of tape revealed about two people she thought she knew
• How learning her parents' own childhoods helped her see them as broken people rather than only as the source of her pain
• Why the silence in an interview, or a hard conversation, often gets you closer to the truth than the next question
• How six siblings who went years without speaking found their way back, through a Sunday morning book club that became "a reconciliation in real time"
• What it means to tell a painful family story so that there are no victims and no villains

Guest Bio

Diana Keough is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, on NPR, and on PBS. Named AP Ohio Reporter of the Year, she has won roughly thirty journalism awards across print and radio. She holds an MFA in narrative nonfiction from the University of Georgia's Grady College, where she teaches, and writes the monthly column "Between Sundays" for Salvation South. Not From a Nice Family, her reported memoir podcast produced with Campside Media for Audible, is her first podcast.

Chapters & Key Timestamps

00:00 Opening and episode premise

01:29 Growing up fundamentalist Baptist in Elm Grove, Wisconsin

02:32 Leaving Bob Jones University, and the mother who stopped speaking to her

03:47 Coming home in 1988 hoping to finally connect with her mom

04:54 The diagnosis that exposed her father's 27-year double life

05:50 Why a journalist put a tape recorder in her mother's purse

07:48 Seeing her parents as broken people, and the abuse she had to forgive

11:00 Team Mom vs. Team Dad: how six siblings split apart

13:13 Why both parents agreed to be recorded

17:54 The interviewer's best tool: staying silent

19:22 A marriage her mother never wanted, and her father's side of the story

23:41 National media, and her father becoming a leader in Cincinnati

25:55 "The six of us is the only club I ever wanted to be a member of"

27:07 Thirty years of boxes, 33 cassettes, and full transparency with her siblings

30:15 No victims, no villains, and the Sunday calls that became the ending

33:05 Her hype song: "Brave" by Sara Bareilles

33:45 Where to listen to Not From a Nice Family and connect with Diana

Resources Mentioned

• Podcast: Not From a Nice Family by Diana Keough, an Audible Original produced with Campside Media (search "Not From a Nice Family" on Audible; Audible subscription required)
• Column: "Between Sundays" by Diana Keough at Salvation South - https://www.salvationsouth.com/author/diana-keough/
• Hype Song: "Brave" by Sara Bareilles - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUQsqBqxoR4&list=RDQUQsqBqxoR4&start_radio=1

Connect With Diana Keough

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-keough-a354646/

Instagram: @dianakeyo (https://www.instagram.com/dianakeyo/)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557124244395

Twitter/X: @dikeough (https://x.com/dikeough)

Podcast: Not From a Nice Family (Audible Original; search the title on Audible)

Continue With Lori

Website: https://zenrabbit.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Email: [email protected]

Invitation From Lori

Zen Rabbit

This episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit. Trust is the foundation of all great workplaces, and in today's hybrid, fast-moving work culture, it's built through consistent, clear, human communication.

Quarterly town halls, Slack messages, or team-building events are rarely enough to create the connection employees need. That's why forward-thinking companies are hiring Lori to create internal and private podcasts that bring leaders and employees together through authentic stories and real conversations.

Think of it as the old-school company newsletter reinvented for the modern workplace.

If your company wants to strengthen communication, connection, community, and culture, connect with Lori at [email protected] or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Related Conversation

Episode 239: One Drop of Water and a Dying Plant with Cyndy Etler

Another conversation about telling the truth of a difficult upbringing in a strict, controlling environment, and turning that story into a memoir.

About FINE is a 4-Letter Word

FINE is a 4-Letter Word is the show for leaders who are tired of pretending everything is fine.

We explore what it takes to lead with empathy, vulnerability, gratitude, and courage, especially during the seasons when life and leadership feel anything but fine.

Listen for honest conversations about how human connection influences innovation, retention, leadership, and real impact. New episodes every week.

Follow FINE is a 4-Letter Word

Follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode.

If this conversation gave you something useful to think about, leave a review. Reviews help more people discover the show and join the conversation.

Research & Sources

• Diana describes the high doses of AZT her mother received in the early 1990s and notes that the "AIDS cocktail" arrived after her mother's death in 1994. Combination antiretroviral therapy became the standard of care in 1996, following the approval of protease inhibitors, and early AZT monotherapy was given at higher doses than later regimens. Source: "HIV Treatment Paradigm Shifts over the Past 40 Years," PMC - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12749152
• Diana's statement that only four AIDS hospices existed in 1988 is presented as her recollection, not as an independently verified figure.

On September 6, 1997, the day of Princess Diana's funeral, Jobert Abueva couldn't get out of bed. He was in a Hong Kong hotel room, paralyzed for the better part of 48 hours, unable to touch the club sandwich or hot tea he'd ordered, crying from exhaustion, loneliness, and homesickness. It was, he says, the lowest point of a career that from the outside looked like nothing but success.

For most of his thirties, Jobert had been living the frenzied pace of a global marketing career, opening new markets for Herbal Essences across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, jumping from country to country in a matter of months, taking calls with U.S. headquarters at all hours. He got the raises and the next plum assignment. He also got the lack of sleep, the overeating, the overdrinking, and the signals he kept ignoring, until his body simply stopped.

In this conversation, Jobert tells Lori how a childhood memory of Janus, the two-faced Roman god of beginnings and endings, surfaced in that hotel room and became the seed of a framework he now calls the Janus Plan. It's a conversation about what happens when you finally stop outrunning burnout, why looking backward is what makes it possible to move forward, and why boundaries only stick the second time you build them on purpose.

What You'll Take Away

• Why ignoring burnout signals for years eventually catches up with even the highest performers
• How a childhood memory of the Roman god Janus reframed Jobert's understanding of endings and beginnings
• Why 'ponder the past' before 'frame the future' makes goals more sustainable than New Year's resolutions
• How setting boundaries the second time around, including turning down future expat assignments and developing a team instead of doing everything himself, reshaped his second corporate career
• Why any personal threshold, not just January 1st, can be the start of a meaningful new chapter

Guest Bio

Jobert E. Abueva grew up between four Asian countries and went on to a three-decade global marketing and philanthropy career, including launching Herbal Essences into international markets. He is a TEDx speaker, a Lambda Literary Prize recipient, and the author of The Janus Plan: A No-Resolutions Path to Begin Your Year with Intention. He lives in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

Chapters & Key Timestamps

00:00 Opening and episode premise

00:39 The nomadic childhood that shaped a global career

07:09 Launching Herbal Essences across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia

10:55 The signals he ignored: exhaustion, overwork, and a frenzied pace

12:00 September 6, 1997: the Hong Kong hotel room he couldn't leave

15:48 A childhood memory of Janus reframes everything

20:15 Ponder the past, frame the future: leaving corporate to write

24:13 Setting boundaries the second time around

26:05 The Janus Plan: a no-resolutions path to a new year

34:24 His hype song and the moment it found him

36:17 Where to find Jobert and the invitation to 'be like Janus'

Resources Mentioned

• Book: The Janus Plan: A No-Resolutions Path to Begin Your Year with Intention by Jobert E. Abueva
• Jobert's 2023 boyhood memoir (referenced in conversation; title to be confirmed with Jobert's team before publication)
• Hype Song: "You Get What You Give" by New Radicals - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL7-CKirWZE&list=RDDL7-CKirWZE&start_radio=1

Connect With Jobert Abueva

Website: https://joberteabueva.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jobertabueva/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joberteabueva/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joberteabueva/

Book: https://amzn.to/477VkA7

Continue With Lori

Website: https://zenrabbit.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Email: [email protected]

Invitation From Lori

Zen Rabbit

This episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit. Trust is the foundation of all great workplaces, and in today's hybrid, fast-moving work culture, it's built through consistent, clear, human communication.

Quarterly town halls, Slack messages, or team-building events are rarely enough to create the connection employees need. That's why forward-thinking companies are hiring Lori to create internal and private podcasts that bring leaders and employees together through authentic stories and real conversations.

Think of it as the old-school company newsletter reinvented for the modern workplace.

If your company wants to strengthen communication, connection, community, and culture, connect with Lori at [email protected] or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

About FINE is a 4-Letter Word

FINE is a 4-Letter Word is the show for leaders who are tired of pretending everything is fine.

We explore what it takes to lead with empathy, vulnerability, gratitude, and courage, especially during the seasons when life and leadership feel anything but fine.

Listen for honest conversations about how human connection influences innovation, retention, leadership, and real impact. New episodes every week.

Follow FINE is a 4-Letter Word

Follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode.

If this conversation gave you something useful to think about, leave a review. Reviews help more people discover the show and join the conversation.

John Azar fled Syria at 16 in the middle of a civil war, arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina not speaking a word of English, and eventually built his way to an MBA in finance and a career in commercial real estate. Then came 2008. His first company collapsed with no clients, no money, and a brand new baby at home.

He rebuilt, more than once. Along the way, his own therapist gave him a label he still carries: toxic optimist. He believes, almost unshakably, in people's capacity to change, and he's had to learn what that belief costs him when the other person never actually does the work.

On this episode of FINE is a 4-Letter Word, John talks with Lori Saitz about what failure actually means once you separate the event from the emotion attached to it, why he believes mastery requires periods of genuine imbalance, and what he tells business leaders facing circumstances completely outside their control.

What You'll Take Away

• Why believing in people's inherent goodness can work against you, according to what John's own therapist told him
• Why failure is whatever you decide it is, and why the event itself is different from the emotion you attach to it
• What John did in 2008 with no clients, no money, and a newborn at home, and what it teaches about controlling only what's actually yours to control
• Why sometimes the answer isn't what to add to your life, but what to stop doing
• Why mastery requires periods of genuine imbalance, and why that imbalance has to come in sustainable chunks rather than forever

Guest Bio

John Azar is a public speaker, coach, and founder. He speaks and coaches about entrepreneurship, resilience, and the myth surrounding balance and failure. He founded Peak15 Capital, a private equity firm specializing in commercial real estate, with talks drawing on two decades of deal-making, including work on a cumulative portfolio worth over $2 billion nationwide. Prior leadership roles at MACC Venture Partners and Boston Venture Partners, which he co-founded, round out his operating background, and he is also co-founder of Forja, an institutional-grade education and coaching ecosystem for commercial real estate investing and capital markets. He is a graduate of UNC Charlotte and Boston University's Questrom School of Business.

Chapters & Key Timestamps

01:25 The values he was raised with, and growing up the youngest of five in Syria

02:52 Growing up “raised by the wild,” and a childhood shaped by civil war

04:09 Immigrating to Charlotte, North Carolina at 16 with no English

05:32 The people who became his avatars: his father, brother, mother, and sisters

08:46 The term his therapist gave him: “toxic optimist”

10:53 Why failure is whatever you decide it is

14:14 His failed marriage, and what he's learned about facing himself

18:09 Building and closing multiple companies, including through the 2008 crisis

20:49 What to say to leaders facing circumstances completely outside their control

23:15 Commission and omission: sometimes the answer is what to stop doing

24:34 The daily practices that keep him grounded

25:00 Embracing imbalance as a requirement for mastery

31:04 The free diver metaphor: why imbalance has to come in chunks, not forever

32:27 The song that gets him going, and its unlikely origin

33:20 Where to find John: his coaching site and Peak 15 Capital

Resources Mentioned

• Company: Peak15 Capital — private equity firm specializing in commercial real estate
• Company: Forja — institutional-grade education and coaching ecosystem for CRE investing and capital markets, co-founded by John
• TV Show: Ballers (HBO) — the source of John's energy song
• Song: Right Above It by Lil Wayne and Drake — open.spotify.com/track/1kMuU3TNQvHbqvXCWBodmP

Connect With John Azar

Company: Peak15 Capital

Company: Forja

Website: johnazar.com

Website: peak15cap.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jalalazar

Instagram: @jjazar

Email: [email protected]

Continue With Lori

Website: zenrabbit.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Email: [email protected]

Invitation From Lori

This episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit. Trust is the foundation of all great workplaces, and in today's hybrid, fast-moving work culture, it's built through consistent, clear, human communication.

Quarterly town halls, Slack messages, or team-building events are rarely enough to create the connection employees need. That's why forward-thinking companies are hiring Lori to create internal and private podcasts that bring leaders and employees together through authentic stories and real conversations.

Think of it as the old-school company newsletter reinvented for the modern workplace.

If your company wants to strengthen communication, connection, community, and culture, connect with Lori at [email protected] or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Related Conversation

Episode 240: Amanda Van Der Heiden — on “win or learn,” her own reframe of failure that closely parallels John's view that failure is whatever you decide it is.

About FINE is a 4-Letter Word

FINE is a 4-Letter Word is the show for leaders who are tired of pretending everything is fine. We explore what it takes to lead with empathy, vulnerability, gratitude, and courage, especially during the seasons when life and leadership feel anything but fine. Listen for honest conversations about how human connection influences innovation, retention, leadership, and real impact. New episodes every week.

Follow FINE is a 4-Letter Word

Follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode. If this conversation gave you something useful to think about, leave a review. Reviews help more people discover the show and join the conversation.

How many things in your life are you currently trying to fix that aren't even yours to fix? An employee who isn't performing the way you want. A team member who keeps making the same mistake. A business problem you've been solving alone for years. A family member whose choices frustrate you. Your own tendency to overwork, overthink, and over-achieve.

Recording solo this week from Ideas Fest, a festival in a field about 45 minutes outside London with 6,000 other founders, entrepreneurs, and investors, Lori Saitz breaks down why fixing feels like responsibility but is actually about control, and why the exact instinct that made you successful as an individual contributor is often the thing holding your team, your family, or yourself back.

Drawing on conversations from four past episodes, a business owner who scaled by stepping back, a leader who reframed what it means to see people as more than resources, a guest who spent years achieving to prove his worth, and a founder who lost everything overnight through no fault of her own, Lori lays out a five-question test for telling the difference between fixing and leading, and what real trust actually requires you to give up.

What You'll Take Away

• Why fixing other people's problems is often less about helping them and more about maintaining a feeling of control
• The real difference between helping someone become more capable and rescuing them from ever having to be
• Why the skill that made you successful as an individual contributor can become the exact thing holding your organization back once you're leading others
• A five-question test to run before you jump in and solve a problem that was never yours to solve
• What “this is how it is now” actually means as a starting point for acceptance, not a form of giving up

Chapters & Key Timestamps

00:00 Opening: the cost of fixing things that aren't yours to fix

01:27 Recording solo from Ideas Fest in England

01:57 The things we try to fix that were never ours to fix

02:41 Why fixing feels like responsibility, but is often about control

03:10 The high-achiever hustle myth, and what it actually costs

03:37 You can only control your inputs, never the outcomes

04:08 The exact skill that gets you promoted becomes the thing holding your team back

04:39 Will Steel's story: the business owner who scaled by stepping back (Ep. 235)

05:16 Five questions to ask before deciding your team needs more of you

05:55 The real difference between helping and rescuing

06:30 What rescuing sounds like, versus what leadership actually sounds like

07:37 Scott Doggett's boat analogy: rowing hard, barely rowing, rowing backwards (Ep. 238)

08:42 Why you can't lead someone you've already decided is a problem

09:19 Recognizing people as humans, not managing them as “resources”

09:55 Anthony Sparks and the belief that achievement will finally make you worthy (Ep. 216)

11:01 Why external achievement can't fix an internal problem

11:30 What happens when you genuinely cannot fix the situation

11:57 Jodi Scott's story: losing everything in 24 hours, through nothing she did wrong (Ep. 236)

13:17 “This is how it is now”: acceptance as a starting point, not surrender

14:00 Why trust and micromanaging cannot coexist

14:38 Trusting someone means trusting their way, not just your way

15:16 The five-question test: am I fixing, or am I leading?

16:28 What true leadership actually looks like

16:56 The song, and why it's a little ironic given today's topic

The Fixing-or-Leading Test

RUN THIS BEFORE YOU JUMP IN TO SOLVE SOMETHING THAT ISN'T YOURS:

1. Is this even mine to fix? If not, step back.

2. Does this person need me to give them an answer, or do they need me

to ask better questions?

3. Am I solving the problem, or am I relieving my own discomfort?

4. If I fix this, what will this person learn?

5. What happens if I don't step in?

Resources Mentioned

• Song: Control by Janet Jackson

Episodes Referenced in This Episode

• Episode 235: Will Steel — the auto body shop client who went from 65–75-hour weeks to 12, grew revenue from $2.5M to $7M, and sold the business for $23.5M within 12 months of stepping out of the day-to-day.
• Episode 238: Scott Doggett — the boat analogy for team engagement: three people rowing hard, five barely dipping their oars, two actively rowing backwards.
• Episode 216: Anthony Sparks — on why money, titles, and achievement are scoreboards that can buy options and reduce stress, but can't replace self-respect or meaningful connection.
• Episode 236: Jodi Scott — on losing her team and her income within 24 hours after her acquiring partner was raided by federal investigators, and the phrase that became her starting point afterward: “this is how it is now.”

Continue With Lori

Website: zenrabbit.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Email: [email protected]

Invitation From Lori

This episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit. Trust is the foundation of all great workplaces, and in today's hybrid, fast-moving work culture, it's built through consistent, clear, human communication.

Quarterly town halls, Slack messages, or team-building events are rarely enough to create the connection employees need. That's why forward-thinking companies are hiring Lori to create internal and private podcasts that bring leaders and employees together through authentic stories and real conversations.

Think of it as the old-school company newsletter reinvented for the modern workplace.

If your company wants to strengthen communication, connection, community, and culture, connect with Lori at

[email protected] or on

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

About FINE is a 4-Letter Word

FINE is a 4-Letter Word is the show for leaders who are tired of pretending everything is fine.

We explore what it takes to lead with empathy, vulnerability, gratitude, and courage, especially during the seasons when life and leadership feel anything but fine.

Listen for honest conversations about how human connection influences innovation, retention, leadership, and real impact.

New episodes every week.

Follow FINE is a 4-Letter Word

Follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode. If this conversation gave you something useful to think about, leave a review. Reviews help more people discover the show and join the conversation

Shane Lukas built his career on the belief that transparency, done right, protects you. He had spoken about his history in sex work advocacy at national and international conferences for years, and when a highly awarded, LGBTQ-friendly US company hired him, he did what he always did: he was upfront about who he was and where he'd come from.

The same day, someone in the sales department Googled his name and called HR. He was terminated immediately, for something that had nothing to do with his job performance.

On this episode of FINE is a 4-Letter Word, Shane tells Lori Saitz what that firing revealed about the gap between a company's stated values and its lived ones, what a federal arrest years later taught him about testing his own values under real pressure, and why he now believes clarity about your values, not compromise, is what actually makes hard decisions easier.

What You'll Take Away

• Why being fired for radical transparency, from a company that had built its brand on LGBTQ+ support, revealed the real gap between stated values and lived ones
• What a values hierarchy is, and why trying to defend every value equally leaves you paralyzed instead of grounded
• Why Shane believes the next generation may be better positioned to stand up for their values, having less invested in promises that were already broken
• The difference between the 'melting pot' and 'mosaic' metaphors for culture, and why the mosaic reflects what he actually wants to see
• What algorithm-driven feeds cost us that a library shelf never did, and why 'adjacent knowledge' matters more than it sounds

Guest Bio

Shane Lukas is an activist, the brains behind award-winning brand strategy firm A Great Idea, a public speaker, and co-host of Power Beyond Pride, the weekly podcast for queer changemakers. In his latest TEDx talk, “What Values Conflict Costs You,” he brings Midwestern straight-talk to the lie of “I'm fine”: what misalignment actually costs you, and how courage becomes a practice instead of a personality trait.

Chapters & Key Timestamps

02:00The values he was raised with: authenticity, compassion, and bodily autonomy

06:00Growing up in an unstable, abusive household, and learning to self-parent at a young age

07:30Meeting Patty Alzator at 14, and what she modeled about dissent through compassion

09:00Studying journalism on the belief that more information leads to better decisions

11:00Building the country's only advocacy program for men in the adult industry

12:00Terminated the same day, after being fully transparent about his past

15:00Being tested on how far he was actually willing to go for his own values

16:00The second TEDx talk, and the arrest that prompted it

19:00The values hierarchy: why you can't defend every value equally

21:00Clarity around your values as the thing that actually makes decisions easier

23:00Whether thinking about your values is a luxury, and why he doesn't think so

27:00Pushing back on a company that refused LGBTQ+ protections despite employing queer people

29:30Why the next generation may be more prepared to stand up for their values

33:30The library metaphor: what 'adjacent knowledge' gave us that algorithms don't

38:00The song that gets him ready to walk on stage

39:00Where to find Shane: shanelukas.com and agreatidea.com

Resources Mentioned

• TEDx Talk: What Values Conflict Costs You — Shane Lukas
• TEDx Talk: Shane's second talk, on the arrest referenced in this episode
• Podcast: Power Beyond Pride — the weekly podcast for queer changemakers, co-hosted by Shane
• Free Resource: downloadable resources and white papers — agreatidea.com/insights
• Book: Shane's upcoming book, launching October — sign up for launch notice at shanelukas.com/book
• Song: Be Great by Jill Scott (feat. Trombone Shorty) — youtube.com/watch?v=ouDRlJljBgs

Connect With Shane Lukas

Company: A Great Idea

Website: shanelukas.com

Website: agreatidea.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shane-lukas

Instagram: @shanelukascom and @agreatideaco

X (Twitter): @shanelukascom and @weareagi

Podcast: Power Beyond Pride

Free Resource: agreatidea.com/insights

Book: sign up for launch notice at shanelukas.com/book

Continue With Lori

Website: zenrabbit.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Email: [email protected]

Invitation From Lori

This episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit. Trust is the foundation of all great workplaces, and in today's hybrid, fast-moving work culture, it's built through consistent, clear, human communication.

Quarterly town halls, Slack messages, or team-building events are rarely enough to create the connection employees need. That's why forward-thinking companies are hiring Lori to create internal and private podcasts that bring leaders and employees together through authentic stories and real conversations.

Think of it as the old-school company newsletter reinvented for the modern workplace.

If your company wants to strengthen communication, connection, community, and culture, connect with Lori at [email protected] or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Related Conversation

Episode 241: Suneet Bhatt — on values clarity as the foundation for every hard decision, not an obstacle to it.

About FINE is a 4-Letter Word

FINE is a 4-Letter Word is the show for leaders who are tired of pretending everything is fine. We explore what it takes to lead with empathy, vulnerability, gratitude, and courage, especially during the seasons when life and leadership feel anything but fine. Listen for honest conversations about how human connection influences innovation, retention, leadership, and real impact. New episodes every week.

Follow FINE is a 4-Letter Word

Follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode. If this conversation gave you something useful to think about, leave a review. Reviews help more people discover the show and join the conversation.

Henry Tolbert was sitting at a fire pit behind a rental house, grilling hot dogs for his wife and four daughters because the insurance money for their flooded home was running out, when he finally said out loud what he had been avoiding for months: this isn't fine.

A few years earlier, Henry had been leading a small church that grew from 40 people to nearly 200, and had been named bishop over 65 churches. Then, without warning, discord broke out with the leader who had brought him in, and he was forced to resign from everything at once. In that same season, an unidentified animal chewed through the water lines in the walls of his home, flooding the first floor and displacing his family for six weeks. He had no job, no income, and what he calls a broken sense of purpose.

On this episode of FINE is a 4-Letter Word, Henry tells Lori Saitz the full arc: a high school football career derailed by one injury after another, a scholarship earned in just five games, an NFL tryout built on the wrong game tape, a Bible study intervention that redirected him into ministry, and the fire pit moment that gave him permission to stop building other people's dreams and finally build his own.

What You'll Take Away

• Why a childhood dream pursued through repeated injury taught Henry more than an NFL career would have
• How losing his ministry role and his home in the same season forced an honest reckoning he had been avoiding for years
• Why judging his life by lead goals, the inputs he controls, instead of lag goals, the outcomes he doesn't, changed how he shows up every day
• What shifted when Henry stopped chasing clients and started inviting people instead
• How admitting he wasn't fine gave him permission to finally build something of his own

Guest Bio

Henry Tolbert spent years answering “How are you?” with “I'm fine” while quietly running on fumes, leading a church, building a business, and pretending he had it all together. Spoiler: he didn't. Now he's the Founder of Simple Systems Consulting, author of The Comeback Plan, and a recovering “I'm fine” addict who helps pastors and entrepreneurs stop white-knuckling their way through leadership and start building systems that actually let them breathe. He's also an Associate Pastor, podcast co-host, husband, dad of four, and a man who once grilled hot dogs over a fire pit in his backyard because life had completely fallen apart, and decided that was the last time he'd pretend everything was fine when it wasn't.

Chapters & Key Timestamps

00:00Opening and introductions — the Henry connection and generational names

01:33The values that shaped him: faith and football in Birmingham, Alabama

05:07A high school career derailed by injury after injury

07:07Five games, one scholarship, and a record-setting career at Grambling State

07:47What NFL scouts never saw: the tape from his best season

08:47His grandmother's plea to walk away — and why he couldn't

11:07The Bible study intervention that redirected him toward ministry

13:47“There's a light around you” — the moment that sealed it

14:47Becoming a bishop over 65 churches, then losing it overnight

15:47The critters, the flooded house, and six weeks displaced with four daughters

17:47The fire pit moment: admitting he wasn't fine

21:07Why people of faith are so good at sweeping things under the rug

25:47Lead goals vs. lag goals: judging life by inputs, not outcomes

27:47The coaching advice that changed everything: invite, don't chase

29:47Why the people who found him became his best clients

31:47Building an audience by just showing up, even when only his wife was watching

34:07In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins: Henry's walk-up song

35:07Where to find Henry: getchurchsystems.com and mybusinesssystems.com

Resources Mentioned

• Book: The Comeback Plan by Henry Tolbert
• Free Resource: Get Church Systems — getchurchsystems.com (for ministry and church leaders)
• Free Resource: My Business Systems — mybusinesssystems.com (for business owners and entrepreneurs)
• Resource: The Mandate Method — themandatemethod.com
• Song: In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins — open.spotify.com/track/7Dbg5O9nNWu6SWxDjJ9qoq

Connect With Henry Tolbert

Company: Simple Systems Consulting

Website: getchurchsystems.com

Website: mybusinesssystems.com

Website: themandatemethod.com

Book: The Comeback Plan

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/henry-tolbert-005a3943

Facebook: facebook.com/htolbert

Instagram: instagram.com/henry_tolbert

Continue With Lori

Website: zenrabbit.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Email: [email protected]

Invitation From Lori

This episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit. Trust is the foundation of all great workplaces, and in today's hybrid, fast-moving work culture, it's built through consistent, clear, human communication.

Quarterly town halls, Slack messages, or team-building events are rarely enough to create the connection employees need. That's why forward-thinking companies are hiring Lori to create internal and private podcasts that bring leaders and employees together through authentic stories and real conversations.

Think of it as the old-school company newsletter reinvented for the modern workplace.

If your company wants to strengthen communication, connection, community, and culture, connect with Lori at [email protected] or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/

Related Conversation

Episode 237: Scott Doggett — a leader who lost his role suddenly and rebuilt around a clearer sense of who he actually was.

About FINE is a 4-Letter Word

FINE is a 4-Letter Word is the show for leaders who are tired of pretending everything is fine. We explore what it takes to lead with empathy, vulnerability, gratitude, and courage, especially during the seasons when life and leadership feel anything but fine. Listen for honest conversations about how human connection influences innovation, retention, leadership, and real impact. New episodes every week.

Follow FINE is a 4-Letter Word

Follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode. If this conversation gave you something useful to think about, leave a review. Reviews help more people discover the show and join the conversation.