More Than Capable

Chasing Control is officially out in the world.

I wrote this book for my children. But as early readers have begun sharing what they saw in its pages—addiction, recovery, grief, faith, fear, family, honesty and hope—I know the story will impact far more people than I ever imagined.

This is a short, personal launch-week episode about what this moment means, some of the early reactions that have stopped me in my tracks, and how you can help this story reach the people who may need it.

LAUNCH WEEK SPECIAL: The Chasing Control Kindle edition is just $0.99 during launch week. If you've been thinking about reading it, this is the week to jump in.

👉 GET CHASING CONTROL HERE

If you want to help carry this work forward:

• Buy the ebook during launch week — even if you're also grabbing the paperback or hardcover. • Read it and leave an honest rating and review on Amazon. Early reviews make an enormous difference for an independently published book. Follow this link to leave a review on your book order. • Share it with someone. If a person came to mind while you were listening, send them the book or this episode.

This is bigger to me than selling copies of a book. Chasing Control is one part of a body of work about what happens when ordinary people stop hiding, face what is true, and discover what they are capable of walking through.

And I'm not finished.

One of the next goals is producing the author-narrated audiobook of Chasing Control. If you believe in this work and want to help build what comes next, you can become a sustaining member of More Than Capable on Patreon.

👉 SUPPORT MORE THAN CAPABLE ON PATREON

👉 SUBSCRIBE TO THE MORE THAN CAPABLE SUBSTACK

Thank you to every person who has walked beside my family, read an early copy, sent a message, shared the work, prayed for us, challenged me, or simply stayed close.

My daughter's life mattered. What my family has walked through matters. And if telling the truth about it helps someone else feel less alone—or gives them the courage to face something they've been avoiding—then this work is doing exactly what I hope it will do.

Chasing Control: From Bottle to Death to Life by Kyle Layne

Chas Hoppe has spent much of his career helping other people tell their stories.

As a ghostwriter, editor, and founder of Cape & Cowl Media, he has worked on dozens of books and helped authors find the meaning, structure, and honesty inside experiences that can be difficult to put into words.

In this conversation, we turn that lens back on Chas.

He reflects on an early childhood filled with creativity and a close extended family, followed by a series of devastating losses that changed his sense of safety and left him determined not to be defined as "the broken kid."

We talk about how those experiences shaped his parenting, his relationship with grief, and his lifelong pull toward creative work. Chas also shares why he eventually recognized that helping other people tell their stories had sometimes felt safer than confronting his own.

From there, we explore the work we did together on my memoir, Chasing Control, including the difference between being honest and still holding something back, how an editor can challenge deeply personal material without taking ownership of it, and why sometimes the stories we avoid are the ones we most need to understand.

This is a conversation about grief, identity, creativity, parenthood, and the stories we tell about our lives — including the ones that take us longer to face.

Learn more about Chas and Cape & Cowl Media at capeandcowlmedia.com or connect and say "hello" to Chas on LinkedIn.

Roy "Red" Campbell was the only man from his company to serve from beginning to end of World War II. He survived years of infantry combat in New Guinea and the Philippines, disease, starvation, wounds, and conditions almost impossible to imagine.

In this episode of More Than Capable, I sit down with Roy's son, Allen Campbell, to explore the man behind that extraordinary life.

Roy documented his experience in Kindling for the Devil's Fires: Journals of an Infantryman, written deliberately from the perspective of what he called a "plain ole mudslingin' infantryman." But this conversation goes beyond what made it onto the page.

Allen shares what it was like to grow up as Roy Campbell's son—from watching grown veterans break down when they saw his father, to hearing the stories that only emerged around the fire at deer camp. We talk about the mental toughness that carried Roy through war, the moment in a slit trench that transformed his faith, the humor he retained through darkness, and the ways war continued to shape his relationship with food, family, work, the outdoors, and the generations that followed him.

Roy never set out to become a hero. He enlisted before Pearl Harbor, fought through the end of the war, and eventually returned home to Wisconsin after nearly five years away.

This is not simply a story about World War II. It is a conversation about the man who came home—and what a son learned by having him as a father.

Topics include: World War II infantry combat, the Pacific Theater, New Guinea, the Philippines, the Greatest Generation, faith under fire, mental toughness, PTSD and the aftermath of war, fatherhood, family legacy, and the stories veterans carried home.

Kindling for the Devil's Fires: Journals of an Infantryman by Roy Campbell is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kindling-Devils-Fires-Journals-Infantryman/dp/1412052653

Narcissistic abuse rarely begins with an obvious warning. It develops gradually—through love bombing, cognitive dissonance, gaslighting, emotional manipulation, and a steady erosion of trust in your own reality.

Meghan Remington joins Kyle to discuss her best-selling memoir, Behind Closed Doors: How I Got Myself Into and Out of a Narcissistic Marriage. Meghan shares how a relationship that initially felt protective and deeply connected slowly became controlling, isolating, and emotionally abusive.

She explains why red flags can be so difficult to recognize when harmful behavior is separated by long stretches of normal life, how people-pleasers and perfectionists can become especially vulnerable to manipulation, and why leaving is rarely as simple as telling someone to walk away.

The conversation also explores the public and private faces of abuse, the physical effects of prolonged fear and hypervigilance, the relationship between narcissistic behavior and addiction, and the ways writing helped Meghan process trauma and reclaim her story.

Meghan now uses her clinical background and lived experience through Thriving Ahead, where she works as a certified divorce coach helping people navigate high-conflict and narcissistic relationships.

Topics include:

Narcissism and narcissistic personality traits Love bombing and cognitive dissonance Gaslighting and the loss of trust in your own reality People-pleasing, perfectionism, and emotional manipulation Financial dependence and fear of leaving The public persona behind private abuse PTSD, hypervigilance, and trauma recovery Parenting children through divorce and grief Writing as a tool for processing trauma Divorce coaching and rebuilding personal agency

Learn more about Meghan:

Thriving Ahead: https://thrivingahead.com

Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Audible, Spotify, Apple Books, Google Play, and other major booksellers and audiobook platforms.

Craig Richards has spent his life on the wall.

A climber, speaker, and international musician, Craig grew up in Colorado with rock climbing woven into his family story. At eight years old, he climbed Devil's Tower, the youngest ever to do so at the time. Years later, while training for El Capitan, he fell in the Black Canyon, shattered his leg, and had to help rescue himself from deep in the canyon with no cell service, no easy exit, and miles still to go.

In this conversation, Craig and Kyle talk about the lessons that come from a life shaped by risk, nature, music, pain, and presence. Craig shares what climbing taught him about fear, commitment, doubt, and taking the next action when the way forward feels impossible.

They also explore authenticity, grief, spirituality, performance, healing, and the difference between trying to fix someone's pain and simply standing beside them.

This is a conversation about survival, but even more than that, it is about learning how to stay open, keep moving, and become more fully yourself.

Find Craig at the sites below:

Personal Page -- https://www.craigrichard.com/

Instagram -- https://www.instagram.com/craigrichardlive/

Topics include: rock climbing, Black Canyon, El Capitan, survival, fear, commitment, authenticity, grief, healing, music, spirituality, nature, and taking the next step.

Charles Hartford graduated from West Point, served as an airborne Ranger infantry officer, deployed five times, taught history at the West Point, and helped lead ground forces during the 2003 rescue of American POW Jessica Lynch.

But this conversation is not only about military service or a historic rescue mission.

It is about faith under pressure.

In this episode of More Than Capable, Charles Hartford reflects on the mentors who shaped him, the decision to serve, the weight carried by military families, and the night a joint special operations mission moved through enemy fire to reach Jessica Lynch in an Iraqi hospital.

This is a conversation about war, peace, marriage, service, grief, leadership, and the kind of faith that does not always remove the storm, but can steady a person inside it.

Topics include: West Point, Army Rangers, Jessica Lynch rescue, faith under fire, military family life, combat leadership, prayer, grief, fatherhood, mentorship, service, and finding peace in the middle of pressure.

In this episode of More Than Capable, Kyle sits down with Brian Murray, CEO of Ryan Companies, to talk about depression, leadership, faith, treatment, and the courage it takes to open up.

Brian is not speaking about mental health from a distance. He has lived through severe depression, the fear of being seen as a failure, the isolation that can come with mental health struggles, and the long process of finding help that actually worked. In this conversation, Brian shares how therapy, faith, medication, honest relationships, and the decision to speak publicly about his story helped him move forward.

As CEO of Ryan Companies, Brian has also helped lead meaningful action around mental health in the workplace — including expanded counseling access, mental health safety training, Narcan on job sites and in offices, and a broader effort to reduce stigma in the construction industry.

This conversation is about more than awareness. It is about what happens when someone is willing to say the truth out loud: mental health is real, mental health is common, and mental health is treatable.

We also talk about the power of asking someone "How are you?" and actually staying present long enough to hear the answer.

Brian's previous talks on mental health:

TEDx Talk

Quell Foundation Talk

If this conversation resonates with you, subscribe to More Than Capable for more honest conversations about recovery, faith, family, grief, mental health, and becoming who we are called to be.

If you or someone you love is struggling, you are not alone. Call or text 988 in the U.S. to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

#MentalHealth #Depression #Leadership #Recovery #Faith #MoreThanCapable #BrianMurray #RyanCompanies

Corwin Knight grew up surrounded by sports, Boy Scouts, close friends, and a family that loved him deeply. He was the kid other parents trusted. The one they asked to watch over their sons when everyone left for college.

But in college, drinking changed everything.

What started as partying became blackouts, legal trouble, broken trust, isolation, and the slow loss of the person Corwin knew himself to be. Years later, after another night of drinking left him retracing his steps through a snowstorm, searching for his truck, wallet, phone, and keys, something finally broke open.

In this conversation, Corwin shares his story of alcohol addiction, recovery, family, solitude, working in a bar while sober, and what it means to become trustworthy again. His story is not about perfection. It is about choosing life, telling the truth, and becoming available again to the people who never stopped loving him.

This episode is for anyone who has wondered whether they can change, anyone who loves someone in addiction, and anyone trying to find their way back to themselves.

Topics include: alcohol addiction, sobriety, recovery, family relationships, trust, shame, working around alcohol, solitude, autism and overstimulation, friendship, faith, and becoming yourself again.

Three years after entering rehab, Kyle sits down with his wife, Alyssa, for a conversation about what recovery has required from both of them.

Kyle and Alyssa reflect on the isolation, fear, silence, loyalty, trust, and rebuilding that addiction brought into their marriage. They talk about the rehab intake moment that changed Kyle's recovery, the painful question of why Alyssa stayed, and what it has looked like to rebuild peace in their home one day at a time.

This episode is not just about getting sober. It is about what happens after the crisis point — when the drinking stops, but the marriage, family, wounds, habits, fears, and trust still have to be rebuilt.

Kyle and Alyssa also discuss what recovery has given back: laughter in the house, friendships, fatherhood, honesty, shared responsibility, and a life neither of them would trade.

Topics discussed include:

Alcoholism and marriage Rebuilding trust after addiction The role of loved ones in recovery Why sobriety has to become personally chosen Life after rehab Learning to communicate again The emotional weight carried by spouses and family members Three years sober Fatherhood, family, and recovery Chapter 8 of Alcoholics Anonymous

More Than Capable is about formation, responsibility, recovery, and the work of becoming someone who can carry what life asks of them.

Keep showing up.

In this episode of More Than Capable, Kyle sits down with Jacob Esser, founder of Dads of Down Syndrome, for a conversation about fatherhood, purpose, fear, advocacy, and the unexpected ways our lives are shaped by the moments we never saw coming.

But this conversation is not only about diagnosis. It is about what happens after. Jacob shares how the early days of fatherhood eventually led him to start Dads of Down Syndrome, a growing community created to give fathers a place to be honest, encouraged, and connected. What began with a small group of dads sitting together has grown into a movement built around presence, compassion, and the belief that these men are among "the luckiest men in the world."

This is a conversation about special needs parenting, Down syndrome, marriage, community, honest conversations among men, and the quiet power of simply showing up.