Human School

It seems like everyone is talking about stress. How to manage it. How to get rid of it. How to avoid it at all costs.

But maybe in our journey to eradicate stress from our lives, we’re losing something far more valuable. 

In this solo conversation, Miles Adcox reframes our entire relationship with stress. Instead of treating stress like an opponent to beat, what if we treated it like a system trying to protect us?  

Join Miles as he shares the importance of building capacity over elimination, why meaningful living requires being stretched, and how to become a trusted partner to your own nervous system. 

In this episode, we explore: 

• ​Why "trauma" can feel clinical, but stress is universal  
• ​ Stress as the body's brilliant system for adaptation
• The difference between removing stress and building capacity 
• ​ How curiosity replaces shame when looking at our nervous systems  

Looking to go deeper into your personal growth journey? The conversations on Human School are shaped by the work happening at Onsite Workshops. If you're looking to slow down, break patterns, and do the inner work, visit experienceonsite.com 

Episode chapters:  

00:00 Intro: Is stress really the enemy?  

00:40 The room that changed how I view trauma vs. stress  

01:45 How burnout and emotional exhaustion actually begin  

02:35 Why modern wellness tools miss the mark  

03:15 Stress is an adaptation system, not a design flaw  

04:15 Every meaningful thing in life asks something stressful of you  

05:10 Increasing capacity vs. eliminating stress  

05:55 Everyday pressure vs. profound adversity  

06:45 Stress is an experience, not an identity  

07:20 Why modern nervous systems are carrying more than ever before  

07:50 Swap shame for curiosity: Becoming a student of your nervous system  

08:35 Stop playing tug-of-war with your body 

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What do you do when you go from singing at local bars to millions of video views, playing at Madison Square Garden with Morgan Wallen, and hearing 20,000 people sing your lyrics back to you? If you’re Larry Fleet, you still shop at Ace Hardware. 

Larry Fleet writes the kind of country songs that feel like your own memories — jumping railroad tracks in a truck bed, learning how to tell stories in a barbershop chair, the sound of truck tires in the gravel. In this conversation, Larry opens up about the “simple” mistakes we’re making in modern storytelling, what fatherhood has changed in his songwriting, and how he's managed to tour and write with Willie Nelson, Morgan Wallen, and other heroes of the genre without losing the guy from White Bluff, Tennessee. 

The conversations we have on Human School are shaped by the work happening every day at Onsite. If you feel stuck in the same patterns, Onsite's Living Centered Program helps you slow down, go deeper, and do the inner work that changes things. If you’d like to learn more about Onsite, visit us –– experienceonsite.com

In this conversation: 

• Why “clutter” might be the enemy of great storytelling 

• The $5-a-head night Larry still keeps close, and why he never lets himself forget it 

• Why he built his newest record with zero radio in mind — and what happened when it hit anyway 

• The ways fatherhood has changed him, including teaching him new ways to communicate with others 

• The surprising place his storytelling voice actually comes from  

• What it actually takes to stay a person instead of becoming a product once people start paying attention 

• How to build a songwriting career one bad song (then a hundred more) at a time 

• How to stay "a normal dude" while touring arenas with Willie Nelson and Morgan Wallen 

• Why simple, honest storytelling can reach people that polished products can't 

Episode timestamps: 

 00:00:00 — Welcome to Human School 

00:06:30 — Small-town origins

00:25:30 — Another Year Older — the new record 

01:01:30 — The true story behind "5:25" 

01:04:00 — Why Larry stopped writing for the radio 

01:07:30 — What We Can Learn from Kids

01:15:00 — $5 a head in North Georgia 

01:19:30 — The Radio Said "No" to "Where I Find God"

01:20:30 — The call from Morgan Wallen, and Madison Square Garden 

01:38:30 — What it means to stay human when you're a "product"

01:47:00 — The barbershop that taught him how to tell a story 

01:51:30 — What "Where I Find God" means to the people who needed it 

01:59:00 — Scotland, and the tears neither of them expected 

02:07:30 — Larry on prison ministry and San Quentin 

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Why does being right feel so much better than being curious? And is our obsession with certainty the cause of our greatest divides?

This episode breaks down the psychology behind certainty — why our brains default to it, what it costs us in our relationships, and why curiosity might be the more reliable path to actually feeling connected to other people.

What you'll learn

• How confirmation bias shapes what we believe is true, without us noticing it happening
• What the illusory truth effect is, and why repetition can make an opinion feel like fact
• How to tell the difference between healthy disagreement and contempt
• Why algorithms and media incentives reward certainty over nuance — and what that does to us over time
• A mindset shift for staying curious under pressure, borrowed from an unlikely place: horsemanship
• Why feeling understood does more for anxiety than winning an argument ever does
• How to hold strong beliefs without needing everyone around you to agree

Building your curiosity muscles? Onsite offers a range of experiences to do life-changing work around your story and what your body might be holding onto. Learn more here.

Timestamps

• 00:00 — This might be why you're feeling lonely

• 02:30 — Illusory truth effect and confirmation bias
• 05:30 — Making content in the age of outrage
• 07:00 — The real product is Identity
• 09:45 — A horse changed everything
• 13:00 — Understanding vs. "winning"
• 15:00 — Becoming harder to recruit

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Have you ever gotten a clean bill of health and still felt like something was wrong? What if the anxiety, the brain fog, the thing you can't explain isn't in your head, but a story your body inherited?

Dr. Chris Motley is a functional medicine practitioner and acupuncturist based in Nashville, and the host of the Ancient Health Podcast. For over 22 years, he's blended Chinese medicine, kinesiology, and biofeedback with Western diagnostics to find what standard testing misses — the chronic weaknesses that don't show up on a bloodwork panel but show up in how we sleep, how we digest, and how we carry stress in our bodies.

In this episode, Dr. Motley and Miles talk about how inflammation from food can weaken the blood-brain barrier and surface in surprising ways — and why the weakest organ in your body often maps straight back to how your parents and grandparents lived. Today, you'll learn how to read your body's own signals, why curiosity heals faster than fear, and what it actually looks like to get to the root of a problem instead of managing its symptoms.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

• How chronic inflammation from food can weaken the blood-brain barrier and show up as anxiety, depression, or brain fog
• How to read your body's own signals — sleep patterns, digestion, even facial features — the way a functional medicine practitioner does
• How your weakest organ can map directly back to how your parents and grandparents lived
• Why processed food, not just screens, may be driving the rise in childhood behavioral changes
• How the gut-brain axis connects what you eat to how you feel within hours
• Why getting curious about a weakness — instead of afraid of it — is the first step to healing it
• Simple, low-cost first steps to a more fulfilled, healthier life anyone can start today

If this stirred something in you, Onsite offers a range of experiences to do life-changing work around your story and stored trauma that your body is asking for. Learn more at experienceonsite.com

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What We Discuss:

00:00:00 – Meet Dr. Chris Motley

00:02:41 – Why He Left a Growing Practice

00:08:19 – The Danger of Expertise Without Curiosity

00:12:04 – Meeting Overwhelmed Patients with Optimism

00:13:50 – How Motley Found His Interest in Medicine

00:17:51 – Motley’s Story Through His Gallbladder

00:23:30 – Where He Starts with Every New Patient

00:28:00 – Are Emotions Hiding Inside Our Organs?

00:33:54 – The Benefits of Integrated Medicine: Treating Mind & Body

00:42:36 – The Anxious Patient

00:47:51 – "What You Eat Is What You Think"

00:52:44 – The Health Goal Every Day

00:55:06 – Your Gut is Your Second Brain: Explaining Gut-Brain Axis

01:01:06 – Drivers of the Mental Health Crisis Happening Now

01:05:54 – Why Do We Have So Many Food Allergies?

01:06:45 – People, Food, & the ADD and ADHD Rise

01:08:51 – The Habit Change to Reset Your System

01:11:58 – Motley’s “Basic” Steps Towards Physical Wellness

01:14:01 – Miles’s Steps Toward Emotional Wellness

01:16:47 – What is behind Chronic Constipation?

01:17:54 – Getting Back into Your Body

01:25:22 – What Your Face Reveals About Your Story

01:27:50 – Ancient Practices over Modern Technology

01:33:06 – Motley Outside of Medicine

01:35:41 – The Lesson Weaving Throughout 22 Years Practicing

This episode is a conversation between practitioners sharing personal experience and professional perspective — it is not medical advice. Please consult your own physician or healthcare provider before making any changes to your health, diet, or treatment plan.

Have you ever believed you're only worthy of attention when you're performing and perfect?

What if the thing you fear your kid will inherit is the exact thing you've never worked through yourself?

Tori Kelly, a Grammy-winning vocalist who's been sharing her voice with the world since she was a kid, sits down with Miles for a conversation about identity, motherhood, and what happens when the performance stops.

Tori opens up about growing up in a mixed-race householdwhere she often felt othered, getting signed at 12 and "shelved" before she'd lived enough life to have something to say, and the lie she quietly believed for years: that she wasn't worthy of attention unless she was singing. She talks about touring stadiums with Ed Sheeran while pregnant, writing her new album, God Must Really Love Me, in two weeks while holding her newborn son, and why his first cry made the record.

Tori and Miles go deep into the perfectionism she traces back to her earliest days on stage, the phone cleanses she uses to fight comparison, and why motherhood has made her want her son to see her mess up, say sorry, and be human. Miles shares a mentor's metaphor about gratitude that reframes how you see whatever you're circling right now, and Tori tells the story of the drive where the phrase "God must really love me" came out of her mouth before it became an album title.

Ever notice the pattern you're trying to protect your kids from is usually the one you haven't fully worked through yourself? Onsite's Living Centered Program for parents and adults ready to finally do their own work, not just manage everyone else's. It's not about becoming a perfect parent; It's about becoming an honest one. Learn more at experienceonsite.com

In this conversation, you'll learn:

• How to Trace Perfectionism Back to the Stage Instead of the Story You Tell Yourself
• How to Stop Performing for Approval and Start ActuallyFeeling It
• How Becoming a Parent Can Break a Pattern You Didn't Know You Were Repeating
• How to Use a Phone Cleanse to Get Your Voice Back FromComparison
• How to Write an Album in Two Weeks Once You Stop Editing Yourself
• How to Let Your Kids Watch You Mess Up on Purpose
• How to Reframe a Career "Setback" as the Setup for Something Better
• How Growing Up Feeling "Othered" Shapes the Way You Tell the Truth Later
• How to Turn Gratitude Into a Practice Instead of a Mood
• How to Know the Difference Between Being a Vocalist andBeing Yourself

Follow Human School:

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What We Discuss:

00:00:00 – Meet Tori Kelly

00:01:51 – Her Grand Ole Opry Debut, One Night Before ThisConversation

00:05:34 – Genre-less on Purpose

00:08:41 – The Vocalist Everyone Expects, the Storyteller She's Becoming

00:10:51 – The Soundtrack of Her Childhood

00:12:43 – Signed at 12 & Promised the World

00:23:05 – A Career Built on Slow Builds, Not Big Breaks

00:28:24 – How Becoming a Mom Rewired Her as an Artist

00:29:24 – Touring Stadiums With Ed Sheeran While Pregnant

00:31:13 – What Motherhood Cracked Open

00:36:29 – She Doesn't Want Her Son Thinking He Has to BePerfect

00:38:46 – Tracing Her Perfectionism Back to the Root

00:40:59 – How Approval Got Tangled Up With Her Voice

00:47:31 – The Phone Cleanse That Gave Her Mind Back

00:56:06 – The Story Behind "God Must Really Love Me"

01:01:46 – The Vulture Metaphor: Reframing Gratitude

01:04:41 – Congruence, Not Perfection

01:09:25 – Her Husband and Life on Tour

01:13:34 – Ending on the Only Line That Fits

How do you help an anxious child build real confidence instead of just managing their fear?

What if the very thing keeping your kid unsafe is how hard you're working to protect them?

Sissy Goff and David Thomas are two of the most trusted voices in child and adolescent mental health today, counselors at Daystar Counseling Ministries and hosts of the popular Raising Boys and Girls podcast. With more than three decades combined sitting across from kids and their families, they've become go-to resources for parents navigating anxiety, emotional development, and resilience in childhood. Their new New York Times Bestselling book, Capable, just carried them through a national press tour, including a stop on the Today Show, and for good reason: it takes on one of the most urgent questions facing parents right now.

In this conversation, Sissy, David, and Miles unpack why so many kids today aren't just anxious; they're increasingly unwilling to try, and what parents can actually do to build resilience instead of just managing symptoms. They talk through the difference between attunement and over-protection, why "trust your gut" might be the most important piece of parenting advice out there, and how to set healthy boundaries around technology and social media without shutting your kids out of the world they're growing up in. It's a grounded, hopeful conversation about childhood anxiety, parenting under pressure, and what it actually takes to raise capable, confident kids in an overwhelmed world.

Your kids are watching you more closely than they're listening to you. Onsite's Living Centered Program is a place for parents ready to do their own work, so the patterns they pass down are worth passing on. Learn more at experienceonsite.com.

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For more resources and tools from Sissy Goff & David Thomas, visit raisingboysandgirls.com or follow along on Instagram @raisingboysandgirls.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

• How to Tell Attunement From Rescuing Your Kid
• How to Read the Emergency Behind Their Anxiety
• How to Stop Outsourcing Instincts to Strangers Online
• How to Decide When They Get a Phone or Social Account
• How to Turn a Hard No Into a Creative Yes
• How to Use "Trust the Process" in Their Hardest Stretch
• How to Spot a Problem They Should Solve Themselves
• How to Rebuild Your Resilience Before Teaching It
• How to Hold Grief and Purpose at the Same Time
• How to Give Your Kids a Front-Row Seat to Your Growth
• How to Raise a Capable Kid Without Raising an Anxious One
• How to Pick Two Parenting Voices You Actually Trust

What We Discuss:

00:00:00 – Meet Sissy Goff and David Thomas

00:04:21 – Over-Correction: the Field's New Blind Spot

00:05:35 – Catching Up & Life After the Capable Press Tour

00:08:31 – The Soap Opera Character & Camp Job that Shaped Careers

00:14:02 – A Working 32-Year Partnership

00:17:09 – Sissy’s Dog Who Came to Work & Comforted Teen's Tears

00:20:20 – Sammy, Onsite’s Beagle Who Escorted Every New Guest

00:30:15 – Backstage at the Today Show

00:36:58 – What This Work Taught Them About Being Human

00:41:55 – A National State of Emergency Hiding in Plain Sight

00:49:32 – Escape and Avoidance Feel Like Good Parenting

00:53:29 – What Attunement Actually Looks Like

00:59:25 – “Go in the Strength You Already Have”

01:03:22 – What's Really Underneath a Lack of Confidence

01:10:56 – Trust the Process, Even in Their Hardest Stretch

01:18:25 – Is my child ready for technology?

01:26:18 – Doing Your Own Work Is the Greatest Gift to Your Kids

01:27:16 – A Look Inside Daystar Counseling Ministries

What's the real difference between showing up for someone and rescuing them?

Can a single pair of socks undo years of not letting yourself feel anything?

Bobby Bones went from a campus radio station in Arkansas to the National Radio Hall of Fame, two #1 New York Times bestsellers, and a syndicated morning show heard by millions, turning his own story into a reason other people feel less alone in theirs. He sits down with Miles Adcox eight weeks into fatherhood, in a season that's forced him to slow down after two decades of never having to.

Bobby opens up about being raised by a 16-year-old motherwho struggled with addiction his whole childhood, the trailer he bought her the first time he made real money, and the hard lesson in what enabling actually looks like when you love someone who's sick. He reveals the moment a stranger's kindness at a therapy intensive at Onsite finally broke him open, and shares the four-letter word his mother never said but it’s the one his grandmother said so consistently it became the only safety he knew. Miles and Bobby go deep into being triggered by both praise and criticism, why Bobby only checks hiscomments on Tuesdays, and the grief of having a daughter who'll never meet the grandmother who shaped him most.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

• How to Turn Your Own Insecurities Into a Bridge for Someone Else's
• How to Tell the Difference Between Supporting Someone in Addiction and Enabling Them
• How to Stay Consistent With Someone Even When It Feels Like Nothing Is Changing
• How to Recognize When Both Praise and Criticism Are Actuallya Threat
• How to Build Boundaries So Social Media Doesn't Run YourNervous System
• How to Respond Instead of React When You Feel Challenged
• How to Find Safety in a Relationship After a ChildhoodWithout It
• How to Let a Stranger's Small Act of Kindness Actually Land
• How to Talk to Your Kids About the Parts of Your Story ThatStill Hurt
• How to Know You Were Consistent Enough, Even When Nothing Else Felt Certain

Feeling stuck in patterns you can't quite name? Onsite'sLiving Centered Program is built for people ready to slow down and do the deeper work that creates real change. Learn more at experienceonsite.com.

Follow Human School:

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What We Discuss:

00:00:00 – Meet Bobby Bones

00:03:47 – Why every performer is secretly insecure

00:05:09 – The secret to connecting with people in interviews

00:15:47 – Finding the line between public and private life

00:17:56 – Getting rejected to 2 Bestsellers

00:22:32 – Bobby’s Mom: 16 years old, no support, and anaddiction that never let go

00:31:57 – What to say to someone who is supporting an addict

00:38:06 – "I wish our baby could meet my mom"

00:39:33 – The four-letter word his grandma never stoppedsaying

00:47:11 – Why compliments feel like threats to him

00:50:29 – The boundaries that keep him from spiraling online

00:53:35 – Property and therapy: the two best investments he'smade

00:58:27 – His Onsite story he's never told quite like this

01:07:03 – The TEDx talk that flopped & the one that gothim back on stage

01:11:06 – What watching his wife become a mom taught himabout love

01:13:43 – His message to his daughter, twenty years from now

Have you ever lived a dream so fully that you felt the quiettug to walk away?  Not because it failed you, but because something new was calling.

What does it look like to anchor your identity in somethingthat can never be taken from you, even when everything you've built your life around closes a chapter?

Reece Weaver spent her entire third season as a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader (DCC) carrying a decision nobody outside her closest circle knew about yet. The preacher's granddaughter from Jacksonville, Florida who started dancing at three, earned a scholarship to the University of Alabama —where she also met her husband Will — and felt something shift in her chest the moment she walked into AT&T Stadium as a sophomore. In the years to follow she has become the most-followed DCC in the franchise's history, a breakout presence on Netflix's America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders,and then spent a year in therapy, prayer, and conversation with people she trusts, processing a feeling of “what’s next?” she couldn't explain and couldn't ignore.

In this conversation, Miles Adcox and Reece gets to the story underneath her retirement announcement. Reece opens up about the mental and emotional toll that the spotlight created long before the headlines caught up. She talks about the comparison trap that quietly became perfectionism, not being able to ignore people’s opinions and critiques on social media, her mom's reminder that "if that crown ever gets too tight, we can easily take it off," and why the word "retirement" still doesn't sit right with her. Miles and Reece also get to explore the joy of this next season and what is to come: a book, new hometown, being a cheerleader to her friends, and open hands for more opportunities.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

• How to Know When a Dream Is Finished vs. When You Are
• How to Separate Your Identity from the Thing You're Best At
• How to Let "Two Things Can Be True" Change YourNext Decision
• How to Carry Perfectionism Without Being Carried By It
• How to Survive Being Watched Without Being Defined By It
• How to Hear the Tug Before It Becomes a Roar
• How to Find Community That Tells You the Truth
• How to Serve Something Bigger Than Your Own Highlight Reel
• How to Take a Leap of Faith Into a Blank Canvas
• How to Turn a Page Without Calling It Quitting

The conversations we have on Human School are shaped by thework happening every day at Onsite. Stuck in the same emotional patterns? Onsite's Living Centered Program helps you slow down, go deeper, and do the inner work that changes things. Learn more at experienceonsite.com.

Follow Human School:

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What We Discuss:

00:00:00 – Meet Reece Weaver

00:04:10 – Jacksonville, Florida & the Preacher's Granddaughter

00:09:39 – "I Was a Sponge" — How It All Started at Three

00:22:33 – Dance as an Expressive Therapy

00:24:34 – When Dance Becomes Your Whole Identity

00:27:44 – Who defines your identity?

00:32:42 – What Belonging Really Means

00:33:46 – One Song, Two Auditions, & Dreams She Didn't Know Yet

00:37:22 – Running Out on Bryant-Denny for the First Time

00:39:32 – Learning to Fail Well

00:42:21 – Where Perfectionism Really Comes From

00:50:18 – How Cutthroat Is It Inside the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders?

00:55:37 – Reminder from Mom: "If That Crown Ever Gets Too Tight"

00:59:17 – What to Tell a Young Girl in the Comparison Trap

01:02:18 – America’s Team: The Dallas Cowboys

01:06:52 – The Cotton Bowl Moment That Changed Everything

01:09:47 – The Mental Weight Nobody Talks About

01:17:05 – What’s next for Reece?

01:19:59 – Moving Onto the Next Phase of Life – Goodbye DCC

01:23:17 – Why She Refuses the Word "Retirement"

01:26:47 – What the Tears are Saying

Have you ever fought the hardest battle of your life and then not known what to do once it was over?

What if the story you thought defined you was actually the prologue to something even bigger?

Clea Shearer is co-founder of The Home Edit — the brand, the Netflix show, the New York Times bestselling books. But the Clea in this conversation has spent four years navigating a cancer journey her own doctors call a medical anomaly. From her diagnosis to a double mastectomy, followed by many emergency surgeries, she has faced complications most people never encounter. And she's done it all publicly, because she made a promise in Paris the day after her diagnosis: she was going to make her cancer purposeful.

Miles and Clea go into all sides of facing a cancer treatment, especially the ones no one mentions. She opens up about the depression that hit after ringing the bell, being medically induced into menopause, losing her breast for the third time, and the first real fight she and her husband, John, had in 21 years. But she also shares how making her suffering public became the thing that saved her, why she considers cancer one of the great honors of her life, and what she's learned about building community and finding purpose on the other side.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

• How to find purpose in the middle of the worst thing that's ever happened to you
• How the “ring the bell” moment can become its own kind of rock bottom
• How illness fatigue affects even the most loving support systems
• How to receive help without guilt or resistance
• How sharing your story publicly can become the thing that heals you
• How to tell the difference between relief and healing and why you need both
• How to rebuild meaning when you don't know what you were fighting for anymore
• How the community becomes your greatest medicine when nothing else works
• How to find the honor inside the hardest thing you've never asked for
• How to keep going when you don't know if there's another side

Whether you're navigating grief, burnout, or a quiet sensethat something feels off, Onsite’s Living Centered experience gives you the tools, the community, and the space to change. Learn more at experienceonsite.com.

Follow Human School:

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What We Discuss:

00:00:00 – Meet Clea Shearer

00:03:31 – Hot Flashes & Getting Drop-Kicked Into Menopause

00:06:23 – Diagnosis Day: March 8, 2022

00:07:45 – What Happens After Active Treatment Ends

00:13:35 – The Medical Anomaly Nobody Wants to Be

00:17:52 – The Dark Month No One Saw Coming

00:21:05 – Eight Surgeries and a Year of Reconstruction

00:26:47 – Losing Her Breast for the Third Time

00:29:28 – The Undertow Nobody Else Could See

00:34:25 – The First Real Fight in 21 Years of Marriage

00:38:28 – 2026: The Year of the Fire Horse

00:42:48 – Presence Over Words: Horse Therapy

00:49:30 – The Two Things the Human Brain Fears Most

00:50:06 – Champagne, a Kindle, and Unconventional Coping

00:52:02 – Why She's Never Really Done Therapy

00:54:02 – Inner-Circle Friendship: Sitting Like a Chicken on an Egg

00:56:14 – Community Is the Most Powerful Antidote

01:00:30 – The Moment in Paris That Changed Everything

01:04:46 – Why Cancer Became the Honor of Her Lifetime

01:06:04 – A taste of what they didn’t get to

What does it actually look like to rebuild from the insideout — before the world even knows you needed to?

What happens to a person when tragedy arrives not as a slowunraveling, but all at once — and the only thing left standing is who you actually are?

What does it look like to grieve something you can't talkabout, for a family you can't reach, while the world keeps watching?

Country singer-songwriter Conner Smith landed his firstpublishing deal on Music Row at 16 years old. By 21, he was opening for his heroes. By 24, he'd gone independent, walked away from a label, and released a raw 10-song acoustic record, not because anyone told him to, but because it wasthe first music he ever actually believed in.

In this conversation, Conner opens up to Miles about themoment he stopped writing songs for approval and started writing them for himself, why going independent felt less like a career risk and more like self-respect, and the story of June 8th — the night he was involved in a fatal accident. He shares how grief, silence, and the community that showed up becamethe foundation for the most important growth of his life, what it was like to sit with the family of the woman who died, and why honoring her legacy is now woven into who he's becoming.

The conversations we have on Human School are shaped by the work happening every day at Onsite. For more than 45 years, Onsite has helped people slow down, get honest about their stories, and experience meaningful change through world-class therapeutic experiences. Learn more at ⁠experienceonsite.com.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

• How to know when you're writing someone else's song with your own life
• How early success can quietly steal your sense of self
• How to rebuild your artistic identity from the inside out
• How to tell the difference between stewardship and striving
• How community carries you when you can't carry yourself
• How to redefine success before the milestone redefines you
• How forgiveness can be the most unexpected turning point in a tragedy
• How to let suffering shape you without letting it define you
• How your greatest weakness becomes your greatest strength
• How to let people carry what you've spent your whole lifecarrying alone

Follow Human School:

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What We Discuss:

00:00:00 – Meet Conner Smith

00:04:49 – Growing Up Inside the Dream Before You're Ready

00:08:20 – What Thomas Rhett Taught Him About Priorities

00:10:23 – The Story behind Milestones

00:13:50 – When He Stopped Writing for Himself

00:16:06 – Songwriting & Why He Put the Record Out Anyway

00:21:41 – The First Time He Believed the Compliments

00:28:17 – Redefining Success Without Losing the Dream

00:31:34 – Stewardship vs. Striving

00:34:16 – "Industry Plant": The Song That Got Him in Trouble

00:39:22 – What Happens Before You Find Who You Are

00:41:26 – What He Told a 14-Year-Old About to Sign a Deal

00:47:20 – June 8th: The Night Everything Stopped

00:50:33 – The Weight No One Could Prepare Him For

00:54:46 – Getting Help Early Helped

01:01:48 – Forgiveness Around a Table with Miss Dot's Family

01:03:03 – Miss Dot & Why Her Legacy Matters

01:05:34 – How Tragedy Changed Him

01:14:00 – The 18-Year-Old Who Shared His Story

01:15:32 – Friends Who Showed Up Without Asking

01:18:09 – Transactional vs. Transformational Relationships

01:27:11 – Closing Blessing for Listeners