What do you do when you have been a lifelong lover of books, a dreamer of worlds, and a quiet carrier of stories — but you are convinced you do not belong among the authors whose work fills your shelves?

If you are T.A. Thompson, you stop waiting. You sit down at your keyboard. And you write your way in.

In Episode 102 of Hear Where You Belong Podcast, host Dea Irby sits down with T.A. Thompson — novelist, storyteller, avid reader, and insurance professional by day, world-builder by night. T.A. is the author of The Mark, an adult dystopian novel set in a post-apocalyptic world where a geneticist's dark experiment caused everyone on earth to die around age 22. The oldest person in the world is Alexandra — a 25-year-old lone wolf who does not belong anywhere, and whose journey toward community, accountability, and belonging is the heart of the whole story.

T.A. opens up about what it felt like to write in isolation for years — just himself and his keyboard, occasionally dragging his daughter in to be his sounding board every fifteen minutes after emailing her a new chapter. 😄 He talks about the terrifying process of beta reading — soul-crushing feedback and all — and how it made the book better. He shares the moment he finally overcame his fear and hit publish on Amazon, and why that step felt like putting his baby out into the world for strangers to judge.

He also gets honest about anxiety, the struggle to connect in networking rooms, and what it actually felt like to finally have conversations with other authors and realize: I belong here too.

His favorite quote comes from his own book — spotted by his editor and now the line that stops everyone cold:

We own our messes and our mistakes. It's how we earn the right to own our victories.

And his parting word is one that hits differently when you have just spent time in a world where nobody lives past 25:

Cherish every moment. Cherish the people you have. Because it doesn't last forever.

This episode is for every dreamer who has a story inside them and has not yet found the courage to put it on the page. 💛

📚 Find The Mark by T.A. Thompson on Amazon now 📖 Arcing and Liber Animarum also available

#HearWhereYouBelong, #YouBelong, #TAThompson, #TheMarkNovel, #AdultDystopian, #SelfPublishedAuthor, #WriteYourWayIn, #WeOwnOurMesses, #BelongingThroughStorytelling, #CherrishEveryMoment, #AuthorCommunity, #KDPAmazon, #NewEpisode, #ChristianPodcast, #ImaginationOpensDooors, #DystopianFiction, #BelongingMatters, #FirstTimeAuthor, #StorytellerPodcast, #OwnYourVictories

What would you do if your late grandmother showed up in a dream at 2 AM — not fuzzy, not vague, but fully present, her voice, her face — and looked you in the eye and said: write our story?

Brigid Kennedy got up, made a pot of coffee, and started writing.

In Episode 101 of Hear Where You Belong Podcast, host Dea Irby sits down with Brigid Kennedy — author, speaker, and violin teacher — whose journey into writing began with a calling she never expected and felt completely unqualified to answer. What started as one woman's decision to honor her family's history became Lost: The Lost City of Incan Gold — a sweeping historical fantasy series inspired by her real-life ancestors. Her great-grandfather was an Irish treasure hunter who married a woman in Peru in 1910 before disappearing into the Amazon. He never came back. And for generations, the wound of that unanswered question fractured everything.

Until Brigid wrote the ending her family never got.

In this episode, Brigid opens up about watching her family's history slip through the fingers of every generation — the unlabeled photographs, the half-remembered stories, the aunts and uncles who almost had the right name but couldn't quite remember. She shares what happened when she hit the same wall her family always hit — the moment her great-grandfather vanished — and how her grandmother kept pushing her through it. She talks about becoming the first Kennedy to return to Ireland since her great-grandfather left, standing on the cobblestones he ran on as a boy and feeling the full weight of it. She reveals the treasure her family actually found — now sitting in the Museum of Gold in Lima, Peru. And she shares why a New York Times bestseller told her: you didn't write fantasy. You wrote a reclamation.

She also talks about the violin discipline that carried her through six to eight hours of daily writing, the editor disaster that made her book stronger, and the YouTube series where she reads every chapter herself — complete with the real family photographs.

Her favorite quote, written right on the cover of her book, is the one that will stop you in your tracks:

The fates do not punish. They prepare.

This episode is for everyone who has a calling they have been ignoring. For every woman who feels guilty taking time for herself. And for anyone who has ever felt lost — without history, without roots, without the ending the story deserved.

It's not about finding the time. It's about recognizing what matters enough to make the time. 💛

📚 Find Lost: The Lost City of Incan Gold and all of Brigid's content at BrigidKennedyBooks on all platforms 🎬 Watch An Author's Dream on her YouTube channel

#HearWhereYouBelong, #YouBelong, #BrigidKennedy, #LostCityOfIncanGold, #TheFatesDoNotPunish, #FamilyReclamation, #AncestralHealing, #HistoricalFantasy, #WriteOurStory, #AnAuthorsDream, #IrishPeruvianHeritage, #GrandmothersDream, #TreasureHunterBlood, #NewEpisode, #ChristianPodcast, #BelongingThroughRoots, #FamilyLegacy, #AnswerTheCalling, #MakeTheTime, #YouAreNotLost

What if the life you were trying so hard to fit into was never actually yours to begin with?

That is the question Jessica DeYoung had to answer when she and her family sold everything, packed four kids and a dog onto a 40-foot motorcoach they call Abbey the Adventure Bus, and hit the road full-time across America. Four and a half years. 42 states. Thousands of miles. And one woman finally figuring out who she actually is — without the tight pants, the lipstick collection, and the convenience friends.

In Episode 100 — yes, ONE HUNDRED! — of Hear Where You Belong Podcast, host Dea Irby sits down with Jessica DeYoung, author, speaker, founder of the Made Whole Movement, and host of the Perspectives into Practice Podcast. Jessica is passionate about helping women move beyond performance, people-pleasing, and hiding parts of their story so they can embrace the freedom, wholeness, and purpose God has for them.

And in this conversation, she does exactly that — with refreshing honesty, contagious joy, and more than a few laugh-out-loud moments.

In this episode, Jessica opens up about spending years trying to be everything everyone else needed her to be — dressing the part, talking the part, performing the part — only to discover that the circle closed right up the moment she was no longer convenient. She talks about what God stripped away when she got on the road, and what He replaced it with. She shares the story of Bubble Man on the beach — a retired man who blows bubbles and shares Jesus, and who changed the way Jessica sees what belonging can look like. She gets into the Backroads Bar — her speakeasy-style hobby bar that somehow became one of the most powerful belonging communities she has ever created. And she unpacks the quote she lives by, straight from her own Holy Spirit downloads:

God rarely asks us to have it all figured out. He's usually just asking us to take the next faithful step.

This is Episode 100. And it is everything that number deserves — honest, joyful, faith-filled, and full of the reminder that you do not have to earn love. You are already fully known. You are already fully loved.

Just say yes. 💛

Find Jessica at the Made Whole Movement and Adventures on Purpose 🎙️ Listen to the Perspectives into Practice Podcast wherever you get your podcasts

#HearWhereYouBelong, #YouBelong, #Episode100, #JessicaDeYoung, #MadeWholeMovement, #AdventuresOnPurpose, #AbbeTheAdventureBus, #FullTimeTravel, #JustSayYes, #TakeTheNextFaithfulStep, #BelongingStartsWithGod, #FullyKnownFullyLoved, #StopStriving, #NewEpisode, #ChristianPodcast, #WomensMinistry, #PerspectivesIntoPractice, #NomadFamily, #BelongingMatters, #Milestone100

What if the hardest year of your life — the one with the suicidal child, the estranged daughter, the house fire, and the ministry you had to give away — was actually the year God gave you the desire of your heart?

That is exactly what Tony Stoltzfus discovered. And in Episode 99 of Hear Where You Belong Podcast, he shares it all with a depth and honesty that will stay with you long after the episode ends.

Tony is a bestselling author of 21 books, speaker, coach, and one of the founding voices in the Christian coaching movement. Over 25 years, he has coached hundreds of leaders, trained thousands of coaches, and spent his life building communities where people experience authentic relationships, personal growth, and lasting transformation. His books include the bestselling Coaching Questions, the imaginative Heaven: Experience the Extraordinary, and How to Read the Bible Like a Human Being — a fascinating guide to bringing Scripture alive through visual imagination.

In this episode, Tony opens up about growing up as the nerdy new kid who read a book a day in class with no friends — and how that loneliness drove him straight into the arms of God. He talks about the church community that blew apart and took 270 of his closest friends with it — and the moment God told him something that changed his entire approach to belonging forever: there is more glory in trusting me when you know it's not going to work than when you think it will.

He shares the worship band retreat story that turned zero commitment into total devotion. The Questions for Jesus prayer method that took his answered prayer from near zero to transformational. The fire that was only the fourth most stressful thing that happened that year. And the walk in Maui where God told him to retire — and what He said when Tony asked what that meant.

His favorite quote is going to make every pastor and ministry leader laugh — and then think very hard.

Ministry would be great if it wasn't for the people.

And his parting word — the Fellowship of Sufferings — is one of the most profound things said on this podcast yet.

There is nothing that can happen to you that God won't make something beautiful out of. 💛

📚 Find all 21 of Tony's books on Amazon 🌐 Find Tony's ministry at leadershipmetaformation.com

#HearWhereYouBelong, #YouBelong, #TonyStoltzfus, #NothingGodCantRedeem, #FellowshipOfSufferings, #QuestionsForJesus, #CoachingQuestions, #HowToReadTheBible, #HeavenExperience, #LeadershipMetaformation, #ChristianCoaching, #TransformationThroughSuffering, #BelongingInJesus, #NewEpisode, #ChristianPodcast, #TrustTheProcess, #GodMakesSomethingBeautiful, #AuthenticCommunity, #VulnerabilityIsStrength, #21Books

You can sit in a room full of people and still feel completely alone. Being included is not the same as belonging — and Dr. Stuart Jones has spent his whole life learning that difference from a brother the world often overlooked.

In Episode 98 of Hear Where You Belong Podcast, host Dea Irby sits down with Dr. Stuart Jones — author, speaker, ordained minister, former university vice president, and passionate advocate for disability, dignity, and human worth. His award-winning memoir, For the Love of Stephen: The Story of a Boy Who Was Never Broken, tells the true story of his brother Stephen, who was born with intellectual and developmental disabilities in 1954 — a time when children like him were routinely institutionalized, hidden away, and excluded from every aspect of community life.

Stuart's parents — just 18 years old when Stephen was born — looked their family doctor in the eye and said no. No institution. No hiding. This is our son. He belongs.

And he did. He joined Boy Scouts, 4H, the bowling league, the church volleyball team. He worked as a hospital janitor for 33 years. He rode his bike to work every single day. He knew no strangers — because in Stephen's world, every human being God created was someone worth knowing.

300 people showed up to his funeral just days before Christmas.

In this episode, Stuart opens up about what Stephen taught him about seeing people fully — and why Temple Grandin, who wrote the foreword, calls his book essential reading for every parent of a special needs child. He shares the tricycle moment that changed his parents forever. The heartbreaking irony of how Stephen died. And the question he asked a lecture hall full of future special education teachers that stopped them cold: your students will be included. But how will you make them belong?

His favorite quote — from Maya Angelou — is the one that ties it all together:

People will forget what you say. People will forget what you do. But people will never forget how you made them feel.

This episode will make you look differently at every person you pass today. 💛

📖 For the Love of Stephen is available on Amazon now🌐 Find Stuart at stuartdjones.com

#HearWhereYouBelong, #YouBelong, #ForTheLoveOfStephen, #DrStuartJones, #DifferentNotLess, #DisabilityInclusion, #GodDontMakeNoJunk, #TruelyHuman, #BelongingNotJustInclusion, #TempleGrandin, #MayaAngelou, #NeverForgetHowYouMadeThemFeel, #DisabilityAwareness, #NewEpisode, #ChristianPodcast, #InclusionMatters, #SeeThemFully, #Psalm13914, #BelovedAndBroken, #YouAreNotOverlooked

What do you do when everything around you — the house, the store, the school, the church — belongs to the cotton mill? When your grandfathers started working at age 9? When your daddy quit school in 8th grade because he figured the mill was his destiny anyway?

If you are Donald Williams — you go to Clemson. And you do not stop until you have three degrees.

In Episode 97 of Hear Where You Belong Podcast, host Dea Irby sits down with Donald Williams — educator, researcher, author, storyteller, musician, and one of the most genuinely inspiring guests this podcast has ever hosted. Donald grew up in the cotton mill villages of Rock Hill, South Carolina, became the first in his family to graduate from a major university, and eventually earned a bachelor's, master's, and doctorate — all from Clemson. He then spent more than a decade with the Department of Defense Education Activity, supporting schools and families across the United States and around the world.

His co-authored book, Born of Nothing: From White Trash and Lint Heads to Purpose Across Generations, tells the raw, real, redemptive story of two families who were told they would never amount to anything — and proved every single person wrong.

In this episode we talk about:

🏭 Life in a cotton mill village — where the mill owned everything including your sense of possibility👴 Grandfathers who were child laborers at age 9 — and the faith and dignity they carried anyway📚 Being the first in his family to go to college — and not even knowing what the SAT was as a senior😬 The school counselor whose face said it all — linthead kids don't go to Clemson📉 Getting 6 D's and 1 B his second semester — and the two parental voices that kept him from quitting🚪 The random knock on his dorm room door that God used to change everything🌍 Looking at a globe in 3rd grade and thinking he would never see those places — then working on the other side of the earth🎵 Writing 60 to 80 songs over a lifetime — love letters to his family and to God💛 Both of his sons earning doctorates — and what that means about breaking a generational cycle✊ Why Donald Williams will never go quietly into the night — and his grandson Noah's hilarious take on it 😄

And his favorite quote — the one that is written in his own book and lived out in every chapter of his life:

Your starting point does not determine your finishing point.

This episode is for every person who has ever been told — by a look, a system, a circumstance, or their own inner voice — that they cannot go further than where they started.

Yes. You. Can. 💛

📖 Born of Nothing by Donald Williams and Jason Pike — available on Amazon, FREE on Kindle now!🌐 Find Donald at iamdonaldwilliams.com🎙️ Subscribe to Hear Where You Belong Podcast wherever you listen📺 Subscribe on YouTube and hit the 🔔 bell so you never miss an episode

What does it take to stop trying to be a duplicate — and finally step into being the original God designed you to be?

That is the question Reverend Kevin T. Taylor has been answering his entire life. And in Episode 96 of Hear Where You Belong Podcast, he answers it in a way that is going to stay with you.

Kevin is an executive strategist, pastor of the oldest Black church in upstate New York, founder of the Tailored Stewardship Institute, and award-winning author of A Charge to Keep: Immutable Leadership Lessons from the C-Suite to the Pulpit. At the heart of everything he does is one unshakeable conviction: belonging is built through trust, dignity, and systems that make people feel seen, valued, and safe enough to contribute fully.

In this episode, Kevin opens up about the season he walked away from pastoral ministry — convinced he did not fit the mold, that he was an outsider who had no business in the pulpit. Then came a trip to see The Lion King on Broadway. And one line from Mufasa to Simba that stopped him cold:

You are more than what you have become.

He also shares his remarkable vision for the future of the church — sensory rooms for autistic children, accessible spaces for seniors, classrooms for every learning style — and why belonging means designing for the people who are NOT yet in the room.

Plus a conversation about AI that will completely change how you see it. Not the boogeyman. A thought partner.

And listeners who stay all the way to the end? There is a special gift waiting for you. 😄

His favorite quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will leave you with exactly what you need:

If you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, keep moving forward. 💛

Visit Kevin at RevKTaylor.com — and mention this podcast for 10% off his coaching package.

#HearWhereYouBelong, #YouBelong, #YouAreMoreThanWhatYouHaveBecome, #KeepMovingForward, #RevKevinTTaylor, #TailoredStewardshipInstitute, #AChargeToKeep, #LeadershipAndFaith, #BelongingInTheChurch, #OriginalNotDuplicate, #ChurchLeadership, #AIAndLeadership, #NewEpisode, #ChristianPodcast, #ChangeIsAProcessNotAnEvent

What do you do when the thing you feared most actually happens — and then happens again?

Kathy Rogers knows. And somehow, impossibly, beautifully — she is not bitter. She is not broken. She is a woman whose faith grew unshakeable in the very seasons that would have destroyed most of us.

In Episode 95 of Hear Where You Belong Podcast, Kathy joins host Dea Irby for one of the most tender, honest, and deeply faith-filled conversations this podcast has ever held. Kathy is a business owner, speaker, author, and host of the Your Best Friend's Mom Podcast — and her life story is not an easy one to tell. In January 2018 she was diagnosed with aggressive triple negative breast cancer. She survived. Then her mother lost her five-year battle with metastatic ovarian cancer. Then, six months later, her daughter Elena was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. Two years later, Elena went home to heaven at just 29 years old.

And through all of it — every chemo treatment, every funeral, every grief-soaked Christmas — Kathy kept hearing the same quiet voice: trust me.

In this episode, she opens up about what it truly means to surrender to God not by desire, but by necessity. She talks about the community that showed up with cards every week, loaves of bread left on porches, and gifts on Christmas Eve from a woman she had only just met — and why Satan's greatest tool is isolation. She shares what she witnessed in her daughter's face as Elena found complete peace in Jesus, even in the face of death. And she talks about why she started Your Best Friend's Mom Podcast — born directly from Elena's tight circle of friends who still needed a wise, warm, experienced voice in their corner.

Her book, Look for Good: Discovering God in Grief, Celebration, and the Everydays, is already changing lives two and three steps removed from people she has never even met. And that, she says, is only God.

Her favorite verse — Ephesians 3:20 — will anchor you.

He is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.

He proved it in Kathy's life. He is proving it still. This episode will move you — and remind you that you are never, ever alone. 💛

#HearWhereYouBelong, #YouBelong, #GodNeverLeft, #LookForGood, #KathyRogers, #YourBestFriendsMom, #GriefAndFaith, #TrustMe, #CancerSurvivor, #BerevedMother, #FaithThroughGrief, #ImmeasurablyMore, #Ephesians320, #NewEpisode, #ChristianPodcast, #HoldingGriefAndFaith, #CommunityInGrief, #FaithNotFear, #GodIsFaithful, #YouAreNotAlone

What happens when success on paper no longer feels like alignment in real life?

That is the question Laura Patac spent years avoiding — and then finally, bravely, answered.

Laura is a storyteller, leadership speaker, Gallup-certified CliftonStrengths Coach, and author of Whole, Not Perfect — an Amazon bestselling book in spiritual growth that is less a book to read and more an experience to live through. With over 25 years of executive leadership experience across 7 countries and 5 continents, Laura had a life that looked extraordinary from the outside. High-end roles. Good salary. Constant achievement. Constant movement.

And a very quiet, very persistent disconnection she could not explain.

In Episode 94, Laura joins Dea Irby all the way from Romania for a conversation that is going to reach into your chest and rearrange something. She opens up about the moment she realized she could no longer hear herself underneath all the noise — the roles, the responsibilities, the versions of herself she had built for every room she walked into. She talks about what reinvention actually looks like when it is not about becoming someone new, but about returning to yourself. And she walks through the three questions that started everything:

Who am I beyond what I do?What am I actually good at?What still feels true to me?

She also unpacks how CliftonStrengths revealed the patterns driving her life — and how some of those patterns were serving her while others were quietly running the show unchecked. Plus the story of Whole, Not Perfect — a book born from a lifetime of poetry, 5 years in the making, and a LinkedIn poll that chose the title.

And her favorite quote — from her own book — is one of the most quietly powerful things said on this podcast yet.

We do not become by accident. We become through the stories we choose to live.

This episode is for every high achiever who has everything on paper and still feels something is off. You are not broken. You are just ready to come home to yourself. 💛

#HearWhereYouBelong, #YouBelong, #WholeNotPerfect, #WeDoNotBecomeByAccident, #LauraPatac, #ReinventionJourney, #BelongingStartsWithin, #CliftonStrengths, #HighAchieverLife, #FromSuccessToAlignment, #NewEpisode, #ChristianPodcast, #StoriesWithPurpose, #InternalAlignment, #WholenessNotPerfection

What if the most powerful thing you could do for someone wasn't give them your advice, your money, or your time — but help them see who they already are?

That's the question at the heart of this conversation, and David Ask has built his life around answering it.

David is an entrepreneur, inventor, lead coach for the True North Resiliency Program, and author of the upcoming Guardians of Grit — a book for fathers raising strong, uncrushable sons anchored in identity and purpose. He's also the man who turned a simple thermostat guard into a product carried in over 3,700 retail stores — and who spent a full year showing up daily for a friend who didn't want to live anymore, not because he knew what to say, but because he knew how to stay.

In Episode 93, David and Dea get into all of it — the power of hospitality as a secret weapon, what it means to set the temperature in your home, why knowing someone is the only way to truly love them, and why belonging starts the moment someone looks across a room and says: I am really glad you are here.

He also shares the desk story. And if it doesn't wreck you in the best possible way, check your pulse.

His favorite quote from Benjamin Disraeli will reframe everything you think generosity means.

The greatest good you can do for another is not to share with them your riches, but to reveal to them their own.

This one is for the fathers, the friends, the ones who show up — and the ones who are finally ready to believe they are worth showing up for. 💛

#HearWhereYouBelong, #YouBelong, #RevealTheirRiches, #GuardiansOfGrit, #TrueNorthResiliency, #DavidAsk, #BelongingMatters, #FathersAndSons, #IdentityMatters, #ShowUp, #NewEpisode, #ChristianPodcast, #PricelessAndPurposed, #SeeingSomethingSaySomething, #YouAreGodSInheritance