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

What if everything you've been striving to become… you already are?

The Reverend Ryan Wiksell — Episcopal priest, church planter, and co-author of The Last Seder of James — joins Dea Irby for one of the most theologically rich and practically grounding conversations yet.

Ryan shares why belonging is the one unique thing the church has to offer, how a WWII military lesson completely changed the way he thinks about reaching people, and what happened when he planted a coffeehouse church between the bars and galleries of downtown Springfield, Missouri — open mic nights, conversational sermons, and all.

He also opens up about co-writing a historical novel set in a first-century Jerusalem dungeon on the last night of James, the brother of Jesus — and why the Jewish roots of our faith matter more than most Christians realize.

And then there's the quote that reframes everything: you cannot become what you already are. Salvation, Ryan says, is not transformation. It is remembering. It is reclaiming. It is returning to who God made you to be all along.

This one will stay with you.

Here's the link to the book: https://ourfatherabraham.com/

What if the thing that made you feel like you didn’t fit… was actually proof you were designed to stand out?

In Episode 91, I sit down with Elana Etten—and this conversation will stay with you long after it ends.

She’s a mechanical engineer. A Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt. A stage 4 cancer survivor. An AI strategist. A mom to a nonverbal son who taught her a whole new language of love.

But more than anything… she’s a woman who chose not to shrink.

Elana shares her journey from feeling like the “in-between girl” who never quite fit, to discovering a powerful truth: she was never meant to.

We talk about:
✨ Surviving stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at 35—and rebuilding a life from nothing
✨ Meeting her husband during chemo (yes, really!)
✨ Raising a neurodivergent son who redefined connection, presence, and love
✨ And why the future of AI should make us more human, not less

As the founder of Identity Marketing U.S., Elana is helping leaders and entrepreneurs align who they are with how they show up—and her perspective on AI as a thought partner (not a replacement) is something every business owner needs to hear.

And then… there’s the quote.

The one that might just shake you awake.

From A Return to Love:
“Your playing small does not serve the world.”

This episode isn’t just a story.

It’s a wake-up call.

Press play—and remember who you were created to be. 💡

#HearWhereYouBelong, #DistinctByDesign, #YouBelong, #CancerSurvivor, #AILikeAHuman, #HowToAILikeAHuman, #CognitiveFingerprint, #FractionalAIStrategist, #NeurodivergentMom, #ShineYourLight, #NewEpisode, #ChristianPodcast, #ElanaEtten, #FaithAndPurpose, #YouWereCreatedForThis

What do travel, retreats, the book of Acts, and a big bold personality have in common? My guest Amanda Hietter — and this conversation is one you are going to want to sit down for.

Amanda is the CEO and owner of Across the Horizon Travel, a travel advisor who specializes in international group travel, retreats, and transformational experiences for entrepreneurs, pastors, coaches, and organizations. She is also the host of the Heat Up Your Retreats Podcast — and she is one of the most authentically, unapologetically herself people I have had on this show. I love her.

In Episode 90, Amanda opens up about the moment she felt God calling her to create an intentional community for faith-driven entrepreneurs — a Bible study rooted in the book of Acts that started small and is growing into something way bigger than she planned. She talks about what it really takes to build a space where people feel like they truly belong — whether that's around a table, on a retreat, or in a Zoom room somewhere across the world.

She also gets real about leaving corporate America as a single mom with barely a cushion of savings, trusting God with the birds and the flowers verse, and what happened when multiple people in one week told her she was too much.

Her response? Pure gold.

Her favorite quote — don't quit on your hardest day — hits differently when you hear the story behind it. And her daily prayer? I am still thinking about it.

This episode is for every leader, entrepreneur, and dreamer who has ever been told to shrink. Don't you dare. 💛

Have you ever spent your whole life trying to fit in — with every group, every room, every relationship — only to end up exhausted, alone at the lunch table, and still feeling like you don't quite belong anywhere? That was Val Kleppen. And what God did with that struggle will absolutely bless you.

In Episode 89, I sit down with Val — wife, homeschooling mama, homesteader, bereaved mother, speaker, and host of The Motherhood Experience Podcast — and she gets beautifully honest about what it took to stop striving and start surrendering.

We talk about growing up as a firstborn perfectionist trying to be everything to everyone. We talk about the moment she stopped trying to fit into everyone else's mold and discovered she already belonged — to God. We talk about her daughter Harlan, born sleeping in 2013, and how the Lord redeemed the deepest grief of her life into a ministry that has carried other bereaved families through their darkest days.

And then there's the women's event story — the one where Val sat through an entire meeting thinking why am I here? — right up until the moment her hand shot up in the air and changed everything.

This episode is for every woman who has ever felt like a square peg in a round hole. For every mom in the hard season. For every person who has been trying so hard to make it work that they forgot they don't have to.

You may not fit. But that does not mean you don't belong.

Just do the next thing. God will meet you there. 💛

#HearWhereYouBelong, #YouDontHaveToFitInToBelong, #SquarePegRoundHole, #JustDoTheNextThing, #BereavesMother, #HarlansHeart, #TheMotherhoodExperience, #FaithOverFitting, #BelongingInGod, #YouBelong