Free & Open Mind

What does it really mean to live authentically—and how do you begin again when life takes you far from where you hoped to be? On The Free and Open Mind, Hardy and Stan welcome Richard Kaufman for an honest, uplifting conversation about recovery, resilience, and the choices that can change your direction. Richard shares how he moved from addiction and hardship to a life of service as an author, coach, and podcast host. His story offers a powerful reminder: you don’t need to wait for permission or perfect circumstances to take your next step.

Connect with Richard: Listen to his Vertical Momentum podcast, available on 35 platforms, or reach out to him by direct message.

https://verticalmomentumpodcast.com/

Richard’s books: A Hero’s Journey from Darkness to Light and his guide to podcasting are available on Amazon.

Grab a coffee, get comfortable, and get ready to get real.

🎥 Watch live — Fridays, 9:00 AM Eastern on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLToXR0bXV6I92L3wQ3kChZ8guEomccF9w

🎧 Listen anywhere — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more

https://linktr.ee/freeandopenmind

Meet your hosts:

Hardy Brooklyn → https://boxofrain.com

Stan Nelson → https://coachingwithstan.com.au

Podcast home: https://linktr.ee/freeandopenmind

This show grows one honest conversation at a time. If today's episode landed, follow us, leave a review, and pass it to a friend who needs permission to be real.

What if the life that looks perfect on paper doesn’t feel like yours? In this episode of The Free and Open Mind, life coach Miruna Parchirie joins Hardy and Stan for an honest conversation about the quiet gap between outward success and inner truth—and the courage it takes to question a path everyone else applauds.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re chasing what you truly want or what you’ve been taught to want, this conversation may help you pause, tune out the noise, and hear yourself more clearly. Listen for a fresh perspective on authenticity, intuition, and finding a version of success that actually feels like your own.

Connect with Miruna:

WEB: feelaboutlife.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miruna-parchirie/

Miruna Barkidia Email: [email protected]

🎥 Watch live — Fridays, 9:00 AM Eastern on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLToXR0bXV6I92L3wQ3kChZ8guEomccF9w

🎧 Listen anywhere — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more
https://linktr.ee/freeandopenmind

Meet your hosts:
Hardy Brooklyn → https://boxofrain.com
Stan Nelson → https://coachingwithstan.com.au

Podcast home: https://linktr.ee/freeandopenmind

If this episode hits home, follow Free & Open Mind on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, leave a review, and share it with someone who's tired of pretending.

The Free and Open Mind with Hardy Brooklyn & Stan Nelson

On paper, she had it all: a finance career, good benefits, and a clear path up the ladder. Inside, she wore an invisible mask. When coworkers asked if she loved her job, she said yes, "even though inside, I wanted to scream no."

DaNajah O'Neal quit accounting, packed two suitcases, and moved to Costa Rica, a country she'd never visited. Then she wrote The Surrender Way while still in the messy middle, before she knew how her story would end.

In this episode:

• The coworker's question she couldn't answer
• Hitting rock bottom in Costa Rica and learning to surrender control
• Why aliveness isn't the same as happiness
• The "what have I done?" moment, and the small step that got her through it
• Advice for Black women and anyone who's the "only one in the room"

Stay until the end. DaNajah's closing idea, "the plot is the point," might change how you see your own hardest chapters.

Authenticity isn't something you finish. It's something you keep doing. Listen, subscribe, and share it with someone still wearing the mask.

Grab a coffee, get comfortable, and get ready to get real.

🎥 Watch live on YouTube at 9:00 AM Eastern Friday: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLToXR0bXV6I92L3wQ3kChZ8guEomccF9w⁠🎧 Listen on your platform of choice: ⁠https://linktr.ee/freeandopenmind

In 1950, a mill-town girl from Maine stood on the Senate floor and said what every man in the room was too afraid to say. Senate custom wouldn't let her name Joseph McCarthy. So she described him instead — until nobody needed the name.

It took fifteen minutes. It cost her everything Washington could take. Back home in Maine, the mail ran eight to one in her favor (the reckoning).

This week, Hardy Brooklyn and Stan tell the story of Margaret Chase Smith — and then turn it on you.

Because this isn't a history show. It's a show about authenticity: what it actually costs, and whether you'd pay it. There's a moment in a Senate subway car you won't forget. There's the difference between real authenticity and just being blunt — and why only one of those makes you a jerk. There's Hardy's own bill for walking away from a career everyone told him not to leave (he doesn't soften it).

And there's the question waiting at the end, harder than anything McCarthy ever asked:

Margaret was right. What about everyone who stands alone and isn't?

"Standing alone does not make you correct. It just makes you alone." (sit with that)

Five questions. Three masks. One woman who never wore any of them — and authenticity that held for 32 years.

Stay inquisitive. Stay honest. Be a little bit dangerous.

Grab a coffee, get comfortable, and get ready to get real.

🎥 Watch live on YouTube at 9:00 AM Eastern Friday: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLToXR0bXV6I92L3wQ3kChZ8guEomccF9w
🎧 Listen on your platform of choice: https://linktr.ee/freeandopenmind

Most of us build an identity out of a job title. Alexi Bracey spent 30 years building hers over a stove — chef, feeder of people, the one who walked out of the kitchen at a remote fishing lodge to make the guests laugh because she had nothing to say about fishing.

Then a car hit her head-on. She walked away from it. Two weeks later her balance failed, she fell, and she broke her femur — and with it, the career. No more hauling 30-pound sacks of flour off a shelf. No income. No plan. She couch-surfed for a stretch, never sure night to night where she'd be sleeping.

What she says she never lost was the thing underneath the job: "I had the joy in my back pocket."

In this conversation with Hardy Brooklyn and Stan Nelson, Alexi traces the whole arc without flinching — the cancer diagnosis she says she beat in a year through raw food, meditation, forgiveness work and sheer refusal to doubt herself; the glamorous, shoe-and-jewelry marriage she left and the humbling that followed; the homelessness that permanently rewired how she sees the person holding a cardboard sign at the intersection. "It's not because they deserve it," she says. "Everybody has a story. Everybody's trying to do their best."

Out of that wreckage she built the Leave People Better movement — the practice of ending every single interaction with the other person feeling more human than when it started. Not grand gestures. Reading a barista's name tag and using it. A physical phone call instead of a text asking to schedule a phone call. A paper card. A hand on a stranger's arm. Asking the man holding the door whether his mother is still alive, so you can tell him she did a good job.

She tells one story in this episode — about a young Filipino man she met while walking her dogs, his brother's funeral, and a woman who stopped her on the street weeks later — that she says she'll take to her grave. It's worth the listen on its own.

You'll also hear:

• Why she believes your taste buds, not your willpower, are what finally end the fight with food — and the "anchor meal" trick that gets you through a diet transition
• The acid-and-iron tip that quietly explains why every salad dressing on earth has vinegar in it
• Why she hugs trees on dog walks, and the "nuggets" she says arrive when she does
• The Christopher Reeve reframe: how the best years can come after the worst thing
• Her one piece of advice for anyone in free fall right now — and it starts with don't be a solo player
• The 10-day challenge she leaves listeners with: one person, every day, made better

This one isn't a polished comeback story. It's a woman who lost the thing that made her her, went looking for what was underneath, and found out it was never the job in the first place.

Ask yourself Stan's question while you listen: who are you, when every role you've built your identity around is stripped away?

Grab a coffee, get comfortable, and get ready to get real.

🎥 Watch live on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLToXR0bXV6I92L3wQ3kChZ8guEomccF9w
🎧 Listen on your platform of choice: https://linktr.ee/freeandopenmind

From Blueprints to Sourdough: Are You Feeding Your Body… or Your B.S.?

What makes someone walk away from a successful engineering career to spend three days on a single loaf of bread? In this episode, Hardy Brooklyn sits down with Sven “the Baker” Mostegl, an engineer-turned-master-baker who rebuilt his entire life—country, career, and identity—one honest choice at a time.

This isn’t a foodie chat. It’s a wake-up call.
We dig into:

• Why pain and “failure” might be your best teachers
• How listening to your gut (literally and emotionally) can change your life
• What’s really hiding in most supermarket “bread”
• Why habits, not willpower, are sabotaging your health
• How the people around you can either make your bread rise—or deflate it

You’ll hear about:

• Bread as therapy, ritual, and rebellion
• How your microbiome is talking to your brain (and running more of your life than you think)
• Why being “a little crazy” might actually mean you’re finally becoming authentic

If you’ve ever felt bloated after a meal, stuck in a life that doesn’t fit, or trapped by other people’s expectations, this episode will hit home.

Listen to the end to hear:

• The one question Sven wants you to ask before you change your life
• A powerful reframe that turns “mistakes” into fuel
• A simple, first step to start taking your life—and your health—back

Hit play, break some bread with us, and start feeding the version of you that’s finally ready to rise.

Grab a coffee, get comfortable, and get ready to get real.

🎥 Watch live on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLToXR0bXV6I92L3wQ3kChZ8guEomccF9w
🎧 Listen on your platform of choice: https://linktr.ee/freeandopenmind

Meet John R. Spender — landscaper-turned-life coach, bestselling author, and director of the award-winning documentary The Gift in Adversity. In this episode of The Free and Open Mind, John reveals how childhood illiteracy, the collapse of a thriving business, and battles with addiction became the very tools that rebuilt his life. Hear the unfiltered stories behind jaw-dropping moments of serendipity — from an unexpected film shoot at Agape to a chance meeting in a Bali bar that changed everything — and how a single gut feeling led him to rescue an orphanage on the brink of starvation.

Listen for:

•⁠ ⁠The raw moment John chose to stop numbing and start rebuilding (you’ll feel the urgency).

•⁠ ⁠How he turned shame into a career and authored 45 books — starting with one small coaching pivot.

•⁠ ⁠Practical, tiny daily changes that compound into massive transformation (exact rituals you can try tomorrow).

•⁠ ⁠The surprising charitable wins that deepened his purpose — and how your struggles can become your message.

•⁠ ⁠A closing challenge from John: one first-time action to break the cycle and begin authentic living.

If you’re wrestling with a setback or wondering how to turn pain into purpose, stay with us — this episode moves from hard honesty to tangible next steps and ends with the kind of hope that actually sticks.

• Find Hardy Brooklyn at  https://boxofrain.com and http://freeandopenmind.com
• Connect with Stan Nelson at https://coachingwithstan.com.au
• Podcast website: https://linktr.ee/freeandopenmind

If this episode hits home, follow Free & Open Mind on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, leave a review, and share this with one friend who’s tired of pretending.

Wired for Connection isn’t a networking hack—it’s a reality check on the circuits that actually power your life. In this solo episode, Hardy Brooklyn pulls back the curtain on his Toastmasters speech and goes deeper into the truth underneath the metaphors: why tech, coaching, art, and friendship all live or die on the same three pieces—source, load, return path.

You’ll hear how he went from drawers full of dead business cards to a handful of live, monthly check-ins that actually matter, why “I’m just busy” is often code for “I’m disconnected,” and how the performer, peacekeeper, and minimizer masks quietly kill real intimacy. Hardy breaks down authenticity in plain English: not a brand, not a vibe, but a moment where nobody’s managing how they look, and the current finally runs both ways.

This episode hands you one deceptively small assignment: send one honest sentence to one person you’ve kept in the drawer and see if the circuit still holds. If you’ve ever felt surrounded by people but still weirdly alone, hit play, complete the circuit—and if you smell smoke, check your grounding.

• Find Hardy Brooklyn at  https://boxofrain.com and http://freeandopenmind.com
• Connect with Stan Nelson at https://coachingwithstan.com.au
• Podcast website: https://linktr.ee/freeandopenmind

If this episode hits home, follow Free & Open Mind on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, leave a review, and share this with one friend who’s tired of pretending.

This Friday on Free & Open Mind, Hardy and Stan sit down with Mike Pierce, creator of The Four Energy Fields — a framework born from over a decade of watching people heal through hypnosis, Reiki, breathwork, meditation, and everything in between. Mike kept noticing the same thing no matter the method: every real breakthrough touched the same four parts of us — Body. Emotion. Mind. Spirit.For years, Mike tried to control his way to clarity — thinking harder, planning tighter, solving every problem before he let himself live it. Sound familiar? He'll tell us exactly what it took to let that go, and what showed up once he did.This is the conversation for anyone who's ever felt stuck even when they "know better" — and wondered why understanding themselves always seemed to be the missing piece.Your takeaway: you don't need fixing. You need to understand yourself. That shift changes everything.📅 Friday, 9 AM on Facebook — hit that reminder button now, grab your coffee, and come think out loud with us. Or catch it after on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube

What do you do when the people who taught you hard work, hustle, and DIY grit… also become the biggest drain on your mental health?

In this raw, honest conversation, financial advisor Andrew Quebbemann sits down with Hardy Brooklyn to trace his journey from a Wisconsin family candy store to San Diego skies — and the day he chose to become estranged from his own parents to protect his authenticity.

We dig into:

• Growing up in the family gourmet confectionery business (and why he hated helping customers as a kid)
• Wanting to be a doctor, landing in pharma/biotech, and “tripping” into sales
• How a biology major with Midwest guilt ended up as a financial advisor
• The decision to go no-contact with his family after years of repeated, unresolved conflict
• Mourning a relationship with parents who are still alive
• How meditation, rock climbing, and water skiing helped him find his center
• Why he believes there’s “no shame in a dollar”—and why time matters more than money
• Practical first steps to align your money with your values (even if you’re scared to open your bank app)

If you’ve ever felt ashamed of what you earn, guilty about what you spend, or trapped in a “sports and weather” relationship that no longer fits who you really are, this episode is your permission to take a chance on yourself.

🎧 Hit play to hear how Andrew turned family fracture, money shame, and career pivots into a life built on authenticity, boundaries, and true financial freedom.

• Connect with Andrew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-quebbemann/
• Find Hardy Brooklyn at  https://boxofrain.com and http://freeandopenmind.com
• Connect with Stan Nelson at https://coachingwithstan.com.au
• Podcast website: https://linktr.ee/freeandopenmind

If this episode hits home, follow Free & Open Mind on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, leave a review, and share this with one friend who’s tired of pretending.