Other People's Shoes

Season 24: Lost & Found | Guest: Darryl W. Thomas Jr.

What happens when the person you're trying to protect becomes the very reason you find your purpose?

At fourteen years old, Darryl W. Thomas Jr. experienced a loss no child should have to endure.

On February 16, 1997, a violent confrontation ended with the death of the man he called Dad. The man he looked up to. The man he considered his Superman.

In the aftermath, Darryl faced a decision that could have changed the course of his life forever.

But someone was watching.

His ten-year-old brother, Quincy.

And in a moment filled with grief, anger, and confusion, Darryl began to recognize a responsibility much greater than himself.

Today, that responsibility has become what he calls "The Assignment."

Season 24 of Other People's Shoes, Lost & Found, explores what happens when life takes away something we thought we couldn't live without—and what we discover on the other side of that loss.

For Darryl, the journey from heartbreak to purpose has included military service, marriage, fatherhood, caregiving, and a commitment to helping young people navigate circumstances they never chose.

But what does it really mean to be built for adversity?

Who helps us when the weight becomes too much to carry?

And perhaps most importantly, who is counting on us to keep going?

Sometimes finding your assignment begins with recognizing the person standing beside you.

Darryl W. Thomas Jr., affectionately known as Coach D, is a United States Marine Corps veteran, author, speaker, and leadership mentor committed to helping young people discover their potential.

But before he became a mentor to others, Darryl was a young boy navigating poverty, family instability, violence, and profound personal loss.

His childhood was shaped by circumstances no child should have to manage alone.

At fourteen, he experienced the devastating death of his father. He would later learn that the man who had raised him and given him his name was not his biological father a discovery that added another dimension to his understanding of fatherhood and love.

Rather than allowing those experiences to become the only definition of his life, Darryl began developing a sense of responsibility toward others facing similar challenges.

That commitment eventually carried him into the Marine Corps and later into leadership development, coaching, and mentoring young people.

Today, Darryl is also a husband and father of five.

He and his wife, Alexia, have spent decades building a life together while navigating the challenges of her hereditary neurological condition. Darryl serves as her primary caregiver, an assignment that continues to test and deepen his understanding of love, commitment, faith, and perseverance.

Through his book, Today... I Win: When Tests Go Beyond the Classroom, and his work with young people, Darryl encourages others to recognize their worth and discover the strength to keep moving forward.

But his message isn't simply about winning.

It's about understanding who you're becoming and who might be watching you along the way.

In "The Assignment," Neil and Darryl explore:

🙏 Grateful for another opportunity: Darryl opens the conversation by explaining why he's thankful simply to have another day to pursue what he believes God has called him to do.

👟 Running a race that requires endurance: Why Darryl chooses long-distance running shoes as a reflection of the journey he's walking and the importance of staying committed when the finish line feels distant.

💔 The night everything changed: Darryl recounts February 16, 1997, when a violent confrontation ended his father's life and left him confronting grief, anger, and an overwhelming desire for retaliation.

👨‍👦 Who's your little Quincy? How seeing his younger brother watching him helped Darryl reconsider a life-changing decision—and why Quincy remains central to the way he mentors others.

🌱 When something lost becomes something found: Darryl compares his experience to a seed that must be planted before it can grow. How can a painful chapter influence what we choose to do with the rest of our lives?

🪖 From adversity to the Marine Corps: Why Darryl chose a military path that would challenge him, help him mature, and prepare him to provide for the family he was beginning.

📝 Four words on a chalkboard: Darryl remembers a substitute teacher who wrote "I am a winner" before beginning class. Why did those four words become so important during one of the most difficult seasons of his life?

🤝 Everyone needs an AND ONE: Darryl introduces the people who add genuine value to our lives without expecting anything in return. From trusted mentors to the woman who would become his wife, these relationships helped him navigate moments when he felt overwhelmed.

🩵 The woman who helped him grieve: Darryl shares a vulnerable memory of finally allowing himself to cry years after his father's deathand how his high school sweetheart, Alexia, responded with compassion rather than judgment.

💍 Love when the roles change: The woman who once held Darryl through his grief now depends on him for daily care. Darryl reflects on their marriage, Alexia's diagnosis, and the emotional and practical demands of being her primary caregiver.

🙏 Faith when answers don't come easily: How Darryl's belief in God shapes the way he understands responsibility, endurance, and his continued hope for Alexia's healing.

🏠 Choosing a different family legacy: Darryl reflects on his childhood, his relationship with his parents, and his determination not to repeat the patterns of instability and hurt he experienced growing up.

🏋️ Are we really built for this? Darryl shares his belief that people can overcome even extraordinary adversity. Neil challenges that idea by asking how it applies to people who have endured abuse, neglect, or circumstances beyond their control.

🏀 Defying gravity and remembering the assist: From Vince Carter's unforgettable dunk contest to Carolina basketball's tradition of pointing to the passer, Neil and Darryl find a playful way to explore the importance of recognizing those who helped us succeed.

🕯 Lighting another candle: Darryl closes with a reminder that encouraging another person does not diminish what we have to offer. Our willingness to keep going may give someone else the courage to do the same.

Throughout the conversation, Darryl returns to one central conviction:

Our experiences may help shape us, but they do not have to determine the entirety of who we become.

And sometimes the people who need our support are also the people who remind us why we cannot give up.

What if your greatest assignment isn't about something you have to accomplish, but someone you have the opportunity to help?

Who's your little Quincy?

It's a question Darryl asks the people he mentors, and it carries the weight of his own experience.

At fourteen years old, Darryl was grieving, angry, and facing a decision that could have led to even more loss.

He looked toward his younger brother.

Quincy was watching.

He was looking to Darryl for direction, protection, and reassurance.

That moment didn't erase Darryl's grief.

It didn't make his circumstances fair.

And it certainly didn't give him all the answers.

But it helped him recognize that his next choice would affect someone beyond himself.

Years later, Darryl continues to ask people to identify their own little Quincy.

Who is looking to you for an example?

Who needs to know they matter?

And when your own strength is running low, who reminds you why your choices still matter?

There's another important lesson in Darryl's story.

Even the person others depend on needs someone to lean on.

Darryl calls those people his AND ONES people who show up, offer genuine care, and help carry life's weight without keeping score.

His story reminds us that perseverance doesn't have to mean carrying everything alone.

Sometimes we are the older brother.

Sometimes we are Quincy.

And sometimes we need to recognize the person extending a hand toward us.

The assignment isn't always to have every answer. Sometimes it's simply to recognize who needs us—and who we need along the way.

🌐 Darryl W. Thomas Jr. | Official Website

🎤 Committed 2 Win | Leadership and Mentoring

📖 Today... I Win | Books and Resources

💼 Connect with Darryl on LinkedIn

Explore Darryl's leadership programs, speaking engagements, and resources dedicated to helping young people recognize their value and navigate life's challenges.

Thank you, Darryl, for trusting us with such a personal chapter of your life, honoring the people who helped shape your journey, and reminding us that sometimes the most important thing we can do is recognize the person who needs us to show up.

And thank you for your service to our country.

Semper Fi.

🌐 Website | 📘 Facebook | 📸 Instagram | 𝕏 X | 🎵 TikTok | 🎧 Apple Podcasts

Subscribe to Other People's Shoes wherever you listen to podcasts and continue walking with us through Season 24: Lost & Found.

Every conversation is an opportunity to listen differently, challenge our assumptions, and discover another perspective on life.

Darryl asks a question worth carrying beyond this episode:

Who's your little Quincy?

Is there someone looking to you for encouragement, guidance, or simply the reassurance that they're not alone?

And who are the AND ONES in your life the people who have helped you keep going when you weren't sure you could?

If "The Assignment" challenged your perspective on family, responsibility, faith, or perseverance, we'd love to hear what this conversation left with you.

⭐ Leave Your Footprint

Your review helps others discover Other People's Shoes and reminds us that sometimes one person's story can make a meaningful difference in another person's life.

Thank you for walking in Other People's Shoes. 👟🩵

Season 24: Lost & Found | Guest: Jo Kelly

What if the person you've been searching for has been with you all along?

For Jo Kelly, rediscovering herself didn't happen in a quiet moment of reflection. It happened in a hospital hallway, with music in her ears, her body moving, and a cancer treatment waiting on the other side of the door.

After separating from her husband, navigating life as a mother of two, and caring for a daughter with significant medical needs, Jo received another unexpected challenge: a breast cancer diagnosis.

There was fear. There was anger. There was grief.

And, unexpectedly, there was dancing.

During radiation treatments, Jo began noticing something extraordinary about the joy she experienced when she allowed herself to move freely. What started in her own home eventually followed her into the streets, grocery stores, and hospital corridors, inspiring a documentary and a deeper exploration of what it means to feel fully alive.

But this conversation goes far beyond dancing.

Season 24 of Other People's Shoes, Lost & Found, explores the things we lose along life's journey and what we discover when we begin looking beyond those losses.

Jo believes many of us have lost something without even realizing it: our natural instincts, creativity, emotional freedom, and permission to be ourselves.

So how do we rediscover the person we were before the world told us who we should become?

And what happens when we finally stop worrying about staying inside the lines?

Maybe finding your rhythm isn't about learning a new dance.

Maybe it's about remembering how to move.

Jo Kelly is a creative freedom practitioner and the founder of To Be or Not to Act, where she works with professional artists, creative leaders, and others who want to reconnect with their natural instincts and creativity.

Her work centers on an intriguing idea: What if personal growth isn't always about learning something new, but about unlearning the expectations and conditioning that have kept us from experiencing who we already are?

Jo's own life reflects that willingness to explore.

Having lived in multiple countries, she recently moved from Los Angeles to Portugal with her two children and just two suitcases, leaving most of her possessions behind.

But some of her most profound discoveries came during a much more difficult transition.

Following a breast cancer diagnosis, Jo underwent surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Through that experience, she began embracing movement and dance as a way of reconnecting with her body, experiencing joy, and sharing moments of unexpected connection with strangers.

That journey inspired her documentary project, Why Isn't Everyone Dancing?

Today, Jo invites others to reconsider the relationship between creativity, childhood, education, emotional expression, and the freedom to live authentically.

And she isn't afraid to challenge the systems and assumptions many of us have accepted our entire lives.

In "My Rhythm," Neil and Jo explore:

👡 A life that fits into two suitcases: Jo explains why moving from Los Angeles to Portugal with her children and leaving possessions behind felt freeing. What happens when we stop defining ourselves by everything we own?

💔 When life delivers another unexpected challenge: Jo shares the emotional weight of receiving a breast cancer diagnosis while already navigating separation, motherhood, and her daughter's ongoing medical needs.

💃 Dancing through the unexpected: How Jo's experience during chemotherapy and radiation led her to recognize the joy she felt through movement—and why she began dancing in public, even on her way into treatment.

🎬 Why Isn't Everyone Dancing? What began as 30 days of dancing became a documentary project exploring our relationship with our bodies, emotions, freedom, and human connection.

🎨 The little boy and the box of crayons: Neil shares a memory of a young boy who didn't want to color because he couldn't stay inside the lines. How early do we begin believing there's only one acceptable way to create?

🧠 Are we losing ourselves to conditioning? Jo challenges the expectations established by parents, schools, culture, and society. Are we helping children discover who they are, or teaching them to become who we expect?

👨‍👧 Your job is not your identity: Neil reflects on a conversation with his father that challenged how he viewed his work, creativity, and purpose. What happens when we separate who we are from what we do for a living?

🏫 A different approach to education: Jo shares her family's experiences with child-led learning and her belief that curiosity, instinct, and self-directed discovery deserve more room in childhood.

💰 The gift economy meets everyday reality: Jo explains her pay-what-you-can approach to her work, while Neil raises practical questions about employment, bills, and supporting a family. Can we create a different relationship with money without ignoring our responsibilities?

🎭 Rediscovering our creative instincts: Jo describes her work helping adults move beyond learned patterns of behavior and reconnect with the freedom and curiosity they experienced as children.

⏳ A conversation with your 15-year-old self: Neil asks Jo whether the girl she once was would recognize the woman she has become. Her response offers a compelling perspective on identity, growth, and remaining connected to ourselves.

🎧 Permission to move: What if dancing isn't about talent, technique, or getting the steps right? What if it's simply about allowing ourselves to experience the moment without judgment?

Throughout their conversation, Neil and Jo don't agree on everything and that's part of what makes this walk so meaningful.

Jo questions the structures that shape our lives. Neil challenges her to consider the practical responsibilities that come with living inside those structures.

Together, they invite us to explore a question that reaches beyond music, education, or even personal freedom:

Are we living the life we've chosen, or simply following the rhythm we've been taught?

You don't have to stay inside the lines to create something meaningful.

One of the most revealing moments in this conversation comes from Neil's story about a little boy sitting with a box of crayons.

He didn't want to color because he couldn't stay inside the lines.

Somewhere along the way, that little boy had learned that creativity needed to look a certain way to be acceptable.

Jo believes many adults carry that same fear into their relationships, careers, personal choices, and even their understanding of who they're allowed to become.

Her experiences during cancer treatment brought that question into sharper focus.

She didn't stop experiencing fear because she discovered joy. She allowed herself to experience both.

And through dancing, she found a connection to herself that felt deeply meaningful.

Perhaps that's the invitation this episode offers.

Not to abandon every responsibility.

Not to pretend life's challenges don't exist.

But to consider whether we've become so focused on doing life correctly that we've forgotten how to experience it.

Maybe the rhythm you've been searching for isn't something you need to learn. Maybe it's something you need to give yourself permission to rediscover.

🌐 To Be or Not to Act | Jo Kelly's Official Website

💃 Why Isn't Everyone Dancing? | Documentary Project

📸 Jo Kelly | Instagram

Explore Jo's work with creative freedom, emotional expression, and reconnecting with the instincts that make each of us unique.

Thank you, Jo, for sharing your experiences with vulnerability, challenging familiar assumptions, and reminding us that even during life's most difficult seasons, there may still be room for discovery, connection, and joy.

🌐 Website | 📘 Facebook | 📸 Instagram | 𝕏 X | 🎵 TikTok | 🎧 Apple Podcasts

Subscribe to Other People's Shoes wherever you listen to podcasts and continue walking with us through Season 24: Lost & Found.

Every conversation is an opportunity to listen differently, question our assumptions, and discover another perspective on life.

When was the last time you did something simply because it made you feel alive—not because you were good at it, not because someone expected it, but because it brought you joy?

Maybe it's dancing.

Maybe it's creating something.

Maybe it's finally allowing yourself to color outside the lines.

If "My Rhythm" challenged the way you think about creativity, identity, or the expectations we carry, we'd love to know what perspective you'll take with you.

⭐ Leave Your Footprint

Your review helps others discover Other People's Shoes and reminds us that sometimes a different perspective is exactly what we need to find our way forward.

Thank you for walking in Other People's Shoes. 👟🩵

Season 24: Lost & Found | Guest: James Luginbyhl

What happens when life turns down the volume on everything you thought mattered most?

For James Luginbyhl, the loss wasn't simply a marriage or a custody battle. It was the life he imagined sharing with his two daughters.

After what James describes as an awful divorce and an even more difficult custody battle, multiple attorneys advised him to walk away from the fight for custody of his girls.

How does a father make peace with a future he never wanted?

Season 24 of Other People's Shoes, Lost & Found, explores what happens when we lose something deeper than possessions identity, purpose, hope, direction, faith, or the life we thought we would have and what we discover as we begin finding our way forward.

For James, the journey through loss led him toward forgiveness, grace, a renewed understanding of his faith, and something he hadn't expected to find.

His voice.

In "Volume UP," we explore fatherhood, masculinity, marriage, and the difference between offering someone a handout and extending a hand to help them stand again.

And James shares three powerful words he believes every daughter needs to hear from her father.

Sometimes finding your voice doesn't mean speaking louder.

Sometimes it means finally discovering what matters enough to say.

James A. Luginbyhl is a Texas writer, author of Hymns for the Unfinished: A Memoir of Grief and Becoming, and host of the Christian faith podcast CREDO.

Raised in West Texas, James grew up with ideas about strength, responsibility, and what it means to be a man. But life would eventually challenge many of those understandings.

Through the heartbreak of divorce, separation from the everyday lives of his daughters, and a difficult journey toward forgiveness, James began examining what it truly means to live with faith, love with intention, and find grace in circumstances he could not change.

His writing and podcast explore the intersection of grief, Christianity, masculinity, fatherhood, and the unfinished work of becoming who we are meant to be.

James isn't interested in pretending life has been easy or that faith provides simple answers.

He's interested in what happens when we stop hiding behind those answers and begin speaking honestly about the life we've actually lived.

In "Volume UP," Neil and James explore:

💔 When the life you imagined disappears: James reflects on a painful divorce, an exhausting custody battle, and the devastating experience of being advised by multiple attorneys to walk away from the fight.

👨‍👧‍👧 A father's love through loss: What happens when the relationship you imagined having with your children no longer looks the way you hoped?

🌵 The West Texas influence: How James's upbringing shaped his understanding of masculinity, responsibility, strength, and the man he believed he was supposed to become.

🙏 Finding faith in the aftermath: How forgiveness, grace, and his relationship with God became part of a new chapter after profound personal loss.

🚀 A lid or a launch pad: James introduces a striking image about marriage and the influence a wife can have on her husband's growth. Are our closest relationships helping us become who we're meant to be, or holding us back?

🤝 A hand up, not just a handout: Why helping someone rise can be different from simply giving them something, and how dignity, compassion, and genuine connection change the way we serve others.

🧔 Is masculinity becoming endangered? James challenges the way society talks about men and considers what healthy masculinity might look like when strength includes vulnerability, responsibility, compassion, and faith.

🎙 Finding the courage to turn the volume up: How losing so much of the life he knew eventually helped James discover a voice he could use to share his experiences and encourage others.

🗣 Three words every daughter needs to hear: James reveals three powerful words he believes fathers should say to their daughters—and why those words matter.

👟 What it means to be found: James's story invites us to consider whether the things we've lost must define us, or whether the lessons we discover along the way can help us become someone new.

And beneath this entire conversation sits a question:

When life takes away the future you thought was yours, can you still find the courage to turn up the volume on the life you have left?

A lid or a launch pad.

It's a powerful image James brings into this conversation about marriage and the influence we have on the people closest to us.

Our relationships can shape what we believe about ourselves. They can make us feel smaller, or they can create room for us to grow.

But James's story also reminds us that our lives do not have to remain defined by the people, circumstances, or losses that once left us feeling powerless.

Sometimes finding our voice means learning to forgive.

Sometimes it means extending a hand instead of passing judgment.

And sometimes it means discovering that being a strong man isn't about never falling. It's about what we choose to do when we're trying to stand again.

You may not get to rewrite what happened to you. But you can discover a different way to speak about what happens next.

Maybe that's what it really means to turn the volume up.

🌐 James Luginbyhl | Official Website

🎙 CREDO | James Luginbyhl's Podcast

📖 Hymns for the Unfinished | Learn About James's Memoir

Explore James's writing, his reflections on faith and fatherhood, and the questions he continues asking about grief, grace, and becoming.

Thank you, James, for being willing to share the painful parts of your journey, challenge our understanding of masculinity, and remind us that finding our voice can begin in the very places where we once felt silenced.

🌐 Website | 📘 Facebook | 📸 Instagram | 𝕏 X | 🎵 TikTok | 🎧 Apple Podcasts

Subscribe to Other People's Shoes wherever you listen to podcasts and continue walking with us through Season 24: Lost & Found.

Every story is an invitation to look closer, listen longer, and see life from a different perspective.

Did "Volume UP" change the way you think about fatherhood, forgiveness, or finding your voice?

Every story leaves an impression. We'd love to know what this conversation left with you.

⭐ Leave Your Footprint

Your review helps others discover Other People's Shoes and reminds us that one person's story can change another person's perspective.

Thank you for walking in Other People's Shoes. 👟🩵

CAPTAIN'S LOG | SPECIAL BONUS EPISODE

Guest: Sean McCoy

Captain's Log:

Some journeys aren't measured by the miles we've traveled, but by the people who continue walking beside us.

And sometimes, the greatest test of a friendship isn't distance.

It's difference.

My friendship with Sean McCoy began years ago in a podcasting community called Rocket. What started with a simple show swap, where Sean introduced listeners to his podcast Come to the Table, grew into something neither of us could have anticipated.

Phone calls. Text messages. FaceTime conversations. Years of staying connected across the miles.

But recently, something happened that invited a different kind of conversation.

Sean shared a Facebook post about deconstructing his Christian faith.

As his friend, and as someone whose own faith remains important to me, I found myself facing a question that felt much bigger than a difference in beliefs.

When someone you love begins questioning the faith you share, is there still room for them at your table?

James 1:19 reminds us:

“Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.”

Those words became a guiding principle for this encounter.

Not to convince. Not to correct. Not to win an argument.

But to listen.

So, in San Antonio, Texas, Sean drove roughly three hours to join me for something we'd never done before: meeting and recording together, face to face.

And this wasn't just any returning guest.

Sean holds the distinction of appearing on Other People's Shoes more times than any other individual guest.

For the first time, we also captured our conversation on video, scheduled for release on YouTube under the Mission Control playlist.

Two friends. Different perspectives. One table.

And perhaps one of the most important questions we've ever brought to the microphone:

Can we make room for someone's questions without making them feel they no longer belong?

Some guests appear on Other People's Shoes once and leave an impression.

Then there's Sean McCoy.

Sean holds a special place in the history of OPS as our most frequent returning guest. But his significance to me extends far beyond that distinction.

Our friendship began through Rocket, a podcasting community that introduced us to each other's work. A show swap brought Sean onto OPS to talk about his own podcast, Come to the Table.

What might have remained a professional connection became a lasting friendship.

Over the years, we've stayed in touch through phone calls, messages, FaceTime, and Marco Polo, sharing pieces of our lives despite the distance between us.

Yet through all those years, we had never met in person. Not once.

Following Sean's public reflections on deconstructing his Christian faith, I wanted to understand his journey more deeply—not simply as a podcast host, but as his friend.

Sean's story includes being baptized at 32 and, more recently, describing himself as a “seeker without portfolio.”

What do those different chapters mean to him today? How does he understand his earlier faith? And what does he need from friends whose beliefs may not be changing in the same way?

After years of connecting remotely, Sean made the roughly three-hour drive to meet me in San Antonio.

For the very first time, we were sitting across from each other.

And there was still room at the table.

This special bonus episode begins with a friendship and opens into a conversation about faith, questions, belonging, and the importance of listening.

Among the questions guiding our encounter:

🚀 Where it all began  Rocket: How a podcasting community, a show swap, and two microphones laid the foundation for an enduring friendship.

✝️ Remembering the man who was baptized at 32: When Sean looks back at that earlier chapter of his life, who does he remember being? What mattered to him then?

🧭 Deconstructing faith: What does it mean for Sean to revisit beliefs that once shaped his understanding of Christianity?

🪑 Still room at the table: What does Sean need from Christian friends like me to feel genuinely heard, respected, and loved?

🔎 A seeker without portfolio: What does seeking look like when someone is no longer certain how to describe their spiritual identity?

💬 Jesus and Christianity: Has Sean's understanding of Jesus Himself changed, or has his understanding of Christianity changed? And how does he distinguish between the two?

👂 Quick to hear, slow to speak: What might happen if we approached difficult conversations with more curiosity, patience, and willingness to listen?

🚗 Showing up matters: What it meant for Sean to drive roughly three hours so we could finally meet and share this conversation in person.

📹 Beyond the microphone: Our first face-to-face meeting and recording was captured on video for the OPS Mission Control playlist on YouTube. 

These questions invite an honest conversation without requiring either person to have all the answers.

What happens when someone we care about begins seeing the world differently?

Do we become so concerned with defending what we believe that we stop listening to the person in front of us?

Do we confuse disagreement with rejection?

Or can we recognize that making room for someone's questions doesn't mean abandoning our own convictions?

My friendship with Sean began long before this conversation about faith. And my hope is that the willingness to listen can remain stronger than the pressure to agree.

James 1:19 doesn't ask us to have the perfect response.

It calls us first to hear.

Maybe the most meaningful thing we can offer someone who is questioning isn't an answer. Maybe it's the reassurance that they still have a seat at the table.

🔗 Connect with Sean McCoy on LinkedIn

🎙️ The Search for a Table — An earlier OPS conversation with Sean

🎧 That Is a Stupid Thing to Do — Another OPS conversation with Sean

📹 Watch Still Room at the Table on YouTube

For the very first time, Sean and I met and recorded together in person in San Antonio, Texas, capturing our conversation on video.

Scheduled YouTube release: Friday, October 23, 2026

Playlist: Mission Control

▶️ Watch Still Room at the Table — Full Video Conversation

The video will become available according to its scheduled YouTube visibility settings.

Every conversation is another opportunity to walk in someone else's shoes.

At Other People's Shoes, we believe that empathy begins when we're willing to listen to stories that may challenge our assumptions, expand our understanding, and remind us of our shared humanity.

Stay connected and continue the journey with us.

🌐 Website | 📘 Facebook | 📸 Instagram | 𝕏 X | 🎵 TikTok | 🎧 Apple Podcasts

Have you ever experienced a friendship being tested by differences in faith, beliefs, or perspective?

Have you ever needed someone to listen without trying to change your mind?

Or perhaps you've been the person learning how to make room for someone else's questions.

Your story matters, too.

⭐ Leave a Review

Your words help others discover meaningful conversations and remind us that no one should have to walk through life's difficult questions alone.

Captain's Log: Closed.

Thank you for walking in Other People's Shoes. 👟🩵

Season 24: Lost & Found | Guest: Tori DaCosta

What if the biggest thing standing between you and a different future isn't your circumstances but the way you've learned to see them?

We all have a way of looking at life. A collection of beliefs, experiences, assumptions, and expectations that shape how we interpret the world around us.

But what happens when that perspective no longer serves us?

Sometimes finding a new direction doesn't require changing our circumstances. It requires changing the lens through which we see them.

Season 24 of Other People’s Shoes, Lost & Found, explores what happens when people lose something deeper than possessions—identity, purpose, hope, direction, faith, or the life they thought they would have and what they discover as they find a new way forward.

This week, Neil welcomes author Tori DaCosta, whose thought-provoking book, No Name Bastard: How Our Lives Teach Us What We Can Control, Manage, and Influence, challenges us to reconsider the power we give our past and the responsibility we have for our future.

Together, they explore the possibility of a paradigm shift a fundamental change in how we understand ourselves, our experiences, and the choices still available to us.

Because maybe the story doesn't need to change.

Maybe the way we see it does.

Welcome to “Paradigm.”

Tori DaCosta is an author, business leader, coach, and speaker passionate about helping people take ownership of their lives.

Her debut book, No Name Bastard, combines personal experiences with practical lessons about what we can control, what we must manage, and what we can influence.

Rather than allowing life's most difficult chapters to become permanent definitions of who we are, Tori encourages readers to discover what those experiences can teach them.

Her work offers a powerful reminder that although we cannot rewrite yesterday, we can reconsider the meaning we give it—and how we move forward.

In “Paradigm,” Neil and Tori explore:

• 🧠 The Paradigm Shift: What happens when we challenge the beliefs and assumptions shaping our lives
• 🔄 A Different Lens: How changing our perspective can change our relationship with the past
• 📖 No Name Bastard: The meaning and message behind Tori's provocative book
• 🎯 Control, Manage, Influence: Understanding the difference between what is ours to change and what isn't
• 🪞 The Stories We Tell Ourselves: How experiences and labels can influence our identity
• 👣 Personal Ownership: Why taking responsibility for our next steps doesn't mean taking blame for everything that happened
• 🌱 Lessons From Life: Discovering opportunities for growth within difficult experiences
• 🧭 Finding a New Direction: Recognizing that moving forward may begin with seeing things differently

And underneath the entire conversation is a question that sits at the heart of Lost & Found:

What if what you've been searching for isn't a different life but a different way of seeing the life you already have?

You cannot always change what happened. But you can change how you understand it.

A paradigm shift doesn't erase the past, excuse the pain, or pretend difficult experiences never happened.

It invites us to examine what we've believed, question what we've accepted, and recognize the choices still within our reach.

Sometimes we spend so much energy trying to control things that were never ours to control that we overlook the one thing we can begin changing: our response.

Same story.

Different perspective.

A new way forward.

🌐 Tori DaCosta  Journey Stone

📖 No Name Bastard  Official Book Website

Learn more about Tori, her speaking and coaching work, and her book No Name Bastard: How Our Lives Teach Us What We Can Control, Manage, and Influence.

Thank you, Tori, for bringing a different perspective into the Shoe Shack and challenging us to examine the beliefs that shape the way we walk through life.

👟 Website | 📘 Facebook | 📸 Instagram | 𝕏 X | 🎬 TikTok

Has “Paradigm” challenged the way you see your past, your circumstances, or something you've been trying to control?

We'd love to hear how this conversation changed your perspective.

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Sometimes finding your way forward begins with seeing where you are differently.

Season 24: Lost & Found | Guest: Tom Sö

What happens when the noise finally stops?

For years, Tom Sö knew how to keep moving.

Work harder. Chase success. Make more money. Push through whatever was happening internally and keep going.

From the outside, that can look like ambition.

From the inside, it can become exhausting.

Eventually, Tom reached a point where pushing harder was no longer working. The life he had built could not quiet what was happening underneath it.

And then came a sentence that changed his trajectory:

“I need help.”

Season 24 of Other People’s Shoes, Lost & Found, explores the things we lose that cannot be replaced by simply buying another one—identity, purpose, hope, direction, faith, or even our sense of who we are.

Tom’s story brings another possibility into that conversation:

What if we become so surrounded by noise that we lose the ability to hear ourselves?

In “Silence Mode,” Tom and I explore the road from striving and suppression toward vulnerability, meditation, healing, stillness, and learning to relate differently to the thoughts constantly competing for our attention.

Because sometimes getting found does not require another answer.

Sometimes it requires enough silence to finally hear the question.

Tom Sö is the founder of MiddleWave® and the owner of Awakened Energy Healing.

For more than a decade, Tom has worked in areas including trauma healing, meditation, energy work, mindfulness, and spiritual growth. His own journey through emotional struggle, meditation, and seeking help has shaped the way he now works with others.

MiddleWave® was created around a challenge familiar to a lot of us:

How do we quiet a mind that never seems to switch off?

Tom’s work focuses less on eliminating thoughts and more on changing our relationship with them creating enough space to recognize what is happening internally and respond with greater awareness instead of simply reacting.

In “Silence Mode,” Neil and Tom explore:

🔇 What happens when external success does not match what is happening internally

🏃 The danger of believing the answer to every problem is simply to work harder

💰 What chasing money and achievement can provide and what they cannot

🫀 The moment Tom finally acknowledged that he needed help

🧠 Why our thoughts do not necessarily have to control our attention or our decisions

🧘 How meditation became part of Tom’s journey toward stillness and greater self-awareness

🤝 Why asking for help can be an act of strength rather than weakness

🌊 The thinking behind Tom’s MiddleWave® approach to meditation and mind training

🔁 How patterns, conditioning, and mental noise can quietly shape the way we experience life

👟 What it means to spend less time lost inside our own heads and become more present for the life happening around us

And underneath the entire conversation sits a question:

When everything inside us is demanding our attention, what might we discover if we stop long enough to listen?

Silence is not the absence of something. Sometimes it is where we finally notice what has been there all along.

We spend a lot of life trying to turn the volume up.

More achievement.

More productivity.

More distraction.

More answers.

But there are moments when finding our way forward may require the exact opposite.

Quiet.

Space.

Honesty.

And enough courage to admit that we do not have to navigate everything alone.

Maybe going into Silence Mode is not about escaping life.

Maybe it is about finally becoming present enough to live it.

🌐 Website

📸 Instagram

Tom’s work through Awakened Energy Healing and MiddleWave® focuses on meditation, healing, mental patterns, and developing a healthier relationship with the thoughts constantly competing for our attention.

Thank you, Tom, for being willing to talk honestly about what happens when pushing harder stops working—and for reminding us that sometimes one of the strongest things we can say is:

I need help.

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Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and continue walking with us through Season 24: Lost & Found.

Every story is an invitation to hear another point of view and see life from a different perspective.

If “Silence Mode” made you think about the noise in your own life, the things competing for your attention, or whether it might be time to stop trying to carry everything alone, we’d love to hear from you.

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Sometimes getting found starts by turning down the noise.

Season 24: Lost & Found | Guest: Mia Godfrey

⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: This episode discusses childhood trauma, abuse, addiction, grief, death, loss, and emotional pain.

What if surviving is only the beginning?

For much of Mia Godfrey’s life, survival was something she became very good at.

Growing up in Romania under communist rule, Mia experienced poverty, trauma, instability, and pain at an early age. Alcohol eventually became one of the ways she learned to escape what she was carrying.

But leaving one place does not necessarily mean leaving everything behind.

Mia would experience profound loss, including the death of her first husband and later the illness and loss of her sister. Through grief, addiction, faith, therapy, and the difficult work of finally confronting what had been buried, Mia began discovering that simply getting through another day was not the same thing as truly living.

Season 24 of Other People’s Shoes, Lost & Found, explores what happens when people lose something deeper than possessions—identity, purpose, hope, direction, faith, or the life they thought they would have—and what they discover as they begin finding a new way forward.

For Mia, getting found meant becoming willing to look honestly at what she had survived, the ways she had learned to numb the pain, and the possibility that the hardest parts of her story could become something more than wounds she carried.

The title “More to Life” is a nod to Steven Curtis Chapman’s More to This Life and to the question underneath this entire conversation:

Is simply making it through life really all there is?

Mia’s story suggests there is more.

Welcome to “More to Life.”

Mia Godfrey is an author, speaker, Bible counselor, and life coach whose story has been shaped by trauma, addiction, grief, faith, healing, and starting over.

Her memoir, Buried, Not Broken: A Memoir of Survival, Sisterhood, and Starting Over, grew from experiences Mia spent years carrying quietly and from a promise connected to her sister.

Today, Mia uses her story to remind others that being buried beneath painful circumstances does not mean we are permanently broken by them.

Sometimes the things we thought would remain hidden become the very things that help someone else feel less alone.

In “More to Life,” Neil and Mia explore:

🇷🇴 Growing up in Romania under communist rule and the experiences that shaped Mia early in life

🍷 How alcohol became a way of escaping pain rather than actually processing it

🧳 Why changing circumstances or geography does not automatically leave trauma behind

💔 The devastating losses Mia experienced and what grief revealed about the pain she had been carrying

🎭 What happens when we become good at surviving while quietly struggling underneath the surface

🧠 The role therapy played in helping Mia confront things she had spent years trying to bury

🙏 How faith became part of Mia’s journey toward healing, purpose, and a different way of seeing her story

📖 Why telling the truth about her life eventually became Buried, Not Broken

🌱 The difference between being buried by circumstances and believing those circumstances have broken you

👟 What it means to move beyond simply surviving and begin asking what life can still become

And underneath the entire conversation is a question that sits right at the heart of Lost & Found:

What if finding your way forward does not require forgetting what happened but discovering that what happened does not get to decide what your life becomes?

Being buried is not the same thing as being broken.

There are seasons when life can leave us feeling covered by grief, trauma, addiction, disappointment, or loss.

But sometimes what feels like burial may actually be the beginning of something being planted.

Survival can keep us here.

Healing can help us discover why we are still here.

And maybe that is where we begin finding that there really is more to life.

🌐 Mia Godfrey Website

📸 Mia Godfrey on Instagram

📖 Buried, Not Broken: A Memoir of Survival, Sisterhood, and Starting Over

Learn more about Mia, her story, writing, coaching, speaking, and the message behind Buried, Not Broken.

Thank you, Mia, for trusting us with the difficult parts of your story and for reminding us that what has been buried does not have to remain hidden and what has been hurt does not have to remain broken.

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Subscribe to Other People’s Shoes wherever you listen to podcasts and continue walking with us through Season 24: Lost & Found.

Every story is an invitation to look closer, listen longer, and see life from a different perspective.

If “More to Life” made you think about something you have survived, something you have buried, or whether there might still be more waiting on the other side of what you have been through, we’d love to hear from you.

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Your words help more people discover Other People’s Shoes and the stories being shared here each week.

Thank you for walking in Other People’s Shoes. 👟🩵

Maybe getting found begins when we stop asking only how we survived and start asking what we are still here to become.

Season 24: Lost & Found | Guest: Dean Sikes

⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: This episode discusses childhood sexual abuse, trauma, suicide, suicidal thoughts, and emotional pain.

Sixty seconds can feel permanent.

At 15 years old, Dean Sikes experienced sexual abuse. In the aftermath, he made himself a promise: he would never tell anyone what happened.

He kept that secret for 22 years.

The abuse was over in a moment.
The silence lasted decades.

Then an unexpected encounter with the person who abused him brought everything Dean had buried back to the surface.

Season 24 of Other People’s Shoes, Lost & Found, explores what happens when people lose something deeper than possessions—identity, purpose, hope, direction, faith, or the life they thought they would have—and what they discover as they find a new way forward.

For Dean, finding his way forward meant confronting something he had spent years trying not to face: what happened to him could not be changed, but it did not have to control the rest of his story.

Today, Dean has spent more than three decades carrying a message of hope to young people around the world:

You matter.

But what happens when pain has been with you for so long that it begins to feel permanent?

And can healing change what something means without changing what happened?

Welcome to “Permanent.”

Dean Sikes is an author, speaker, and longtime advocate for young people who feel unseen, unheard, or without hope.

Since 1993, Dean has spoken at thousands of events in schools, churches, Teen Challenge centers, prisons, and communities around the world, sharing the You Matter message with millions of people.

His work centers on helping young people understand their value, confront hopelessness, discover purpose, and recognize that the painful chapters of their lives do not have to become the final chapters.

Dean's message comes from more than three decades of ministry—but it also comes from his own experience with trauma, secrecy, shame, forgiveness, and healing.

In “Permanent,” Neil and Dean explore:

🕰️ How an experience lasting only moments affected Dean for decades

🤐 Why Dean decided at 15 that he would never tell anyone about the abuse

🎭 What happens when we become skilled at hiding pain while appearing okay to everyone around us

🏠 The unexpected encounter with his abuser 22 years later that forced Dean to confront what he had buried

🧠 Why emotions we refuse to deal with can eventually begin dealing with us

🗣️ The importance of bringing hidden pain into the light instead of carrying it alone

🙏 The role Dean's faith played in his journey toward healing

🔓 Why forgiveness became connected to freedom without pretending that what happened was acceptable

❤️ Why Dean has dedicated his life to reminding young people that they matter

🌱 How something that shaped your story does not have to permanently define your identity

And underneath the entire conversation is a question that sits right at the heart of Lost & Found:

What if the thing you thought would mark you forever doesn't get the final word?

“You matter.”

Two simple words.

But for someone who feels invisible, ashamed, hopeless, or convinced that their story has already been written, they can mean everything.

🌐 Dean Sikes / You Matter | 🩵 You Matter | 🎧 The YouMatter Podcast

Learn more about Dean's speaking, books, resources, and the You Matter mission to bring hope to young people and help eradicate hopelessness.

Thank you, Dean, for trusting us with your story and for reminding people that what happened to them does not have to be where their story ends.

👟 Website | 📘 Facebook | 📸 Instagram | 𝕏 X | 🎬 TikTok

If “Permanent” made you think about something you have carried, something you have kept hidden, or the possibility that your past does not have to permanently define your future, we'd love to hear from you.

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Season 24: Lost & Found | Guest: Elke Scholz

What if the person you spend the most time with is also the person you are hardest on?

For Elke Scholz, anxiety wasn't always something she could easily identify or explain. It could show up as exhaustion, fear, self-criticism, overthinking, or simply the feeling that something wasn't right.

And somewhere along the way came a painful description: your own worst enemy.

But what happens when that relationship begins to change?

Season 24, Lost & Found, explores what happens when people lose something deeper than possessions—identity, purpose, hope, direction, faith, or the life they thought they would have—and what they discover as they find a new way forward.

In this conversation, Elke and I explore anxiety, the way we speak to ourselves, the importance of curiosity, and what it might mean to stop constantly fighting the person in the mirror.

What would it look like to become your own best friend instead?

Elke Scholz is a registered psychotherapist, author, expressive arts consultant and educator, and EMDR therapist whose work centers around anxiety, resilience, creativity, and emotional well-being.

Her professional experience gives her tools for helping others understand what is happening beneath the surface, but this conversation goes beyond credentials. Elke also shares from her own experiences and what she has learned about the relationship we build with ourselves.

Because knowing how to care for other people doesn't automatically mean we know how to extend that same care inward.

🧠 Recognizing Anxiety
Anxiety doesn't always introduce itself clearly. Elke talks about becoming aware of what is happening emotionally and physically instead of simply assuming something is wrong with us.

🗣️ The Voice We Live With
We spend every day listening to our own internal dialogue. The question becomes whether that voice sounds like someone who is for us or someone constantly working against us.

🔎 Choosing Curiosity
Instead of immediately judging a feeling, reaction, or difficult moment, Elke encourages curiosity. What is happening? Where is this coming from? What might I need right now?

❤️ Offering Yourself Compassion
We often give patience and grace to people we love while withholding those same things from ourselves. Becoming your own best friend doesn't mean avoiding responsibility. It means learning to respond to yourself with honesty without cruelty.

🎨 Finding Tools That Help
Elke shares how creativity, expressive arts, awareness, and practical tools can help us process what we're carrying rather than simply trying to push it away.

👟 From Worst Enemy to Best Friend
Perhaps getting found isn't always about discovering someone new. Sometimes it's about changing the relationship with the person who has been walking with you the entire time.

There is a difference between challenging yourself and constantly attacking yourself.

A best friend doesn't tell you that everything you do is perfect. A best friend can tell you the truth, challenge you, encourage you, sit with you when things hurt, and still refuse to abandon you.

Maybe we deserve to learn how to do some of that for ourselves.

The person you've been fighting might also be the person you need to learn how to stand beside.

🌐 Visit Elke Scholz | 📚 Explore Elke's Books | 🧠 Anxiety Warrior Project | ▶️ YouTube

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If this conversation gave you a different perspective, we'd love to hear from you. Your review helps more people discover Other People's Shoes and the stories being shared here each week.

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Maybe becoming found begins when you stop treating yourself like the enemy and start learning how to be your own best friend.

Season 24: Lost & Found | Steve Wormer

What if confidence isn’t about convincing everyone else that you have it all together?

What if it’s simply learning to believe that you’re worthy enough to take the next step?

In this episode of Other People’s Shoes, I sit down with Steve Wormer, founder of the You Are Worthy Network, for a conversation about confidence, empathy, action, and what happens when we begin seeing value not only in ourselves, but in the people around us.

Steve’s mission is to enlighten people, heal hearts, and bring hope into their lives. Through the You Are Worthy Network, he creates space for people to share their stories, reflect on what they’ve walked through, and hopefully discover that their story still has value.

And maybe that’s where confidence begins.

Not with arrogance.

Not with having all the answers.

But with knowing who you are and being willing to move.

🧭

There’s a difference between believing in yourself and believing you’re better than everyone else.

Steve and I unpack the line between confidence and arrogance, and how healthy confidence doesn’t require us to diminish another person in order to feel secure ourselves.

Real confidence can actually make room for empathy.

It allows us to listen, remain curious, and recognize that the person across from us is carrying a story every bit as important as our own.

🧭

Steve shares a quote during our conversation that stopped me in my tracks:

“Vision without action is simply hallucination.”

We can dream.

We can plan.

We can talk about what we want our lives to become.

But eventually, something has to move.

The vision needs a step.

And sometimes that step doesn’t have to be huge.

🧭

That brought us to one of the great lessons from the movie What About Bob?

Baby steps.

You don’t have to fix everything today.

You don’t have to know exactly where the road ends.

Sometimes confidence looks like having enough courage to take one small step, and then another.

Maybe getting found doesn’t happen all at once.

Maybe we find pieces of ourselves along the way.

🧭

Steve and I talk about:

• The difference between confidence and arrogance
• Why empathy creates genuine human connection
• Recognizing your own worth
• Turning vision into action
• Why sharing our stories can help bring healing
• Creating spaces where people feel heard and valued
• The power of taking baby steps
• How confidence can change the way we move forward

🧭

Steve is the founder of the You Are Worthy Network, where he works to uplift others by giving people a place to share their stories, heal, reflect, and encourage one another.

📘 You Are Worthy Network Facebook Community

▶️ You Are Worthy Network on YouTube

🧭

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🧭

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Sometimes the biggest change begins with the smallest step.