“Do it right or don’t do it at all.” 

- Dr. Alphonso Buie

Episode Summary

Becoming an interior designer “wasn’t on my bingo card,” Alphonso Buie says. Yet here he is in his 40s, building a new career in Atlanta, running Place of Peace, and loving it.

The name came from his grandmother, who always told him that a home should be a place of peace—“and if it’s not, you need to figure it out.” For years, Alphonso didn’t fully understand what she meant. Then he created a home of his own that finally felt calm. Now he helps other people find that same feeling.

His conversation with Jeanne moves easily from why your bedroom—not your office—should be your sanctuary to the healing that can come from letting go. Alphonso shares the story of a client who finally released child-support paperwork she had carried for 27 years. They also talk about mixing metals and colors because “anything matches if you design it right,” Peppercorn accent walls, grasscloth wallpaper, and fabric-and-furniture pilgrimages to Gayle K and High Point.

Beneath the design talk runs a deeper theme: reinvention, letting go, and making room for other people to succeed. As Alphonso puts it, “There’s more than enough for us to eat.”

The conversation gets candid, too. Alphonso opens up about the panic attacks and medical leave he experienced after a workplace rumor involving—of all things—a Beyoncé concert spiraled into an investigation.

Then it’s time for Two Truths & A Lie. Alphonso’s three stories involve teaching in Beijing, being fired over Beyoncé, and winning a million-dollar penny-slots jackpot. One of them isn’t true. You’ll have to listen to the end to discover which one.

Guest Bio

Alphonso Buie is an Atlanta-based interior designer, entrepreneur, and former hospitality professor who once taught business in Beijing. His design career began unexpectedly when an accidental Instagram post grew into a thriving business.

As the founder of Place of Peace, Alphonso specializes in creating “museum-style” homes that allow the art to tell the story. He also does much of the hands-on work himself. Part designer and part therapist, Alphonso helps his clients decide what to keep, what to release, and how to create a space that finally feels like home.

Guest Links
Website: www.placeofpeace.co
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drbuie
Instagram: @place_of_peace_llc

Guest CTA
Let’s figure out what we can do to get you to a Place of Peace. 

Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.
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Website:   https://www.projectcandor.com

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Guest Quote

“Some men see things as they are, and say why. I dream of things that never were, and say why not.”

(Originally attributed to George Bernard Shaw; frequently cited by Senator Robert Kennedy. Ken received this quote inscribed on a glass paperweight from Senator Edward Kennedy following his Senate testimony.)

Episode Summary

In 1970, Ken Kunken was a junior at Cornell University, studying engineering and playing lightweight football. A single tackle during a kickoff play broke his neck, leaving him paralyzed from the shoulders down. He spent the next nine months and twenty days in hospitals and rehabilitation centers. The Rusk Institute’s career guidance for someone with his level of injury: sell magazine subscriptions over the telephone. Ken couldn’t even dial a rotary phone. That pamphlet became the fuel.

What happened next is one of the most quietly staggering stories you’ll hear. Ken returned to Cornell—a campus with no ramps, no curb cuts, no accessibility—being pulled up and bounced down nearly 100 steps on his first day back. He earned his engineering degree, then two master’s degrees from Cornell and Columbia, then a Juris Doctor from Hofstra Law. He mailed over 200 resumes and was rejected by everyone. He was the first quadriplegic to graduate from Cornell, the first to earn a graduate degree there, and the first to serve as an assistant district attorney on Long Island. He practiced law for more than 40 years. The DA’s office later named its annual award for outstanding prosecutors after him.

Then there’s the personal side. In his fifties, more than 30 years after his injury, Ken married Anna—the woman who had originally been hired as his personal care attendant. She proposed. And it was her idea to try for children through in vitro fertilization. On January 24th, 2005, Ken watched from his wheelchair as triplets—Joey, Jimmy, and Timmy—entered the world. The Two Truths and a Lie segment lands with a twist: the story everyone assumed was the lie turned out to be the most complicated truth of all. In 2023, Ken published his memoir, “I Dream of Things That Never Were: The Ken Kunken Story.”

Guest Bio

Kenneth James Kunken is a Cornell-educated engineer turned attorney who practiced law in Nassau County, New York for over 40 years—as a quadriplegic, after breaking his neck in a college football game in 1970. He was the first quadriplegic to graduate from Cornell and the first to serve as an assistant district attorney on Long Island. In 2023, he published his memoir, I Dream of Things That Never Were: The Ken Kunken Story.

Guest Links

•       Website: https://kenkunken.com/
•       Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61566473121422
•       Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ken.kunken/
•       LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenneth-j-kunken-b4b0a9a8/
•       YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdUUa2hyQF8ubUmEARY9WKA
•       Memoir on Amazon: https://a.co/d/1t1UWIN

Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.
Email: [email protected]

Website:   https://www.projectcandor.com

Social Media

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“Sweat dries, blood clots, and broken bones heal. Suck it up.”  — Jay Setchell 

Episode Summary 

Jay Setchell grew up on a working farm where nothing came free — up before sunrise mixing powdered milk to feed calves, sorting eggs by lantern for the candling plant, learning that time is money and a job left half-done isn’t done. That foundation of urgency and responsibility is the thread through everything that followed: the Marine Corps, a string of businesses, and a life that kept testing him. 

And it tested him hard. Jay has died more than once, survived more than 70 surgeries, and broken his neck at 31 in a drowning accident that left him, by every medical prediction, paralyzed for good. He walked anyway — for seventeen years on braces and a cane — before three rare spinal conditions eventually put him in a power wheelchair. Through all of it he leans on faith, family, and a refusal to quit, telling Jeanne plainly that the day he decides he can’t move is the day he stops moving. It’s mind over matter, and he means it literally. 

The conversation ranges from the death of small-town farm life to grief he says he’ll never fully make peace with, to the moment he teared up imagining walking again. It lands on hope: a national business going international, eight-year-old twins to raise, another book taking shape, and a note from an 88-year-old reader now planning her 95th birthday. Then the signature Two Truths & A Lie — where one of Jay’s three headlines is a whopper you won’t see coming. 

Guest Bio 

Jay Setchell is a Marine Corps veteran, author, and speaker who has turned a lifetime of extraordinary adversity into a message of resilience. After multiple near-death experiences, more than 70 surgeries, and a broken neck doctors said would leave him paralyzed forever, Jay refused to quit — and built businesses, coached others, and kept moving. His guiding truths are simple: “If it is to be, it is up to me,” and “It’s always too soon to quit.” 

Guest Links 

• Website:  https://neverquittrying.com 
• Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/JaySetchellTSWY 
• YouTube:  Search “Jay Setchell” to find his guest podcast appearances (no dedicated channel handle on file). 

Guest CTA 

Read Jay’s book and learn more about his story at neverquittrying.com. It’s ranked #1 in two categories on Amazon.

Click here for Jay's book: 

Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.
Email: [email protected]

Website:   https://www.projectcandor.com

Social Media

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“I am FEARLESS, willing to take on any project and get it done. I’ve lived by this my whole life (92 years old), whether I knew it or not.” — Jim Paulk 

Episode Summary 

At 92, Jim Paulk has lived enough lives for several people — Naval Academy graduate, submarine engineering officer, 26-year Procter & Gamble executive, marine conservationist, and published author. In this Ship’s Log, he traces a path that started in Depression-era Brunswick, Georgia, where a teenager who loved hunting, fishing, and golf set his sights on Annapolis — and got in only after two years of trying, with a phone call that came while he was mid-round at a golf tournament. 

From submarines that ran silent on battery power to a five-month campaign that banned destructive gillnets across California, Jim tells stories most people have never heard. He explains how a ragtag committee of retirees “created the perception of success,” flew the state dark-to-dark to win a ballot initiative, and helped launch a white-seabass restoration program still running today. Along the way he shares the love story behind nearly six decades with his late wife, Pat, and how a chance Cracker Barrel encounter with The Platters became a chapter in one of his books. 

The episode closes with Two Truths & A Lie, where Jim reveals that the most cinematic claim of all — three days on the moon with Apollo 16 — was the lie. The truth behind it is even better: that’s astronaut Charlie Duke’s story, which Jim wrote for his book of 81 Naval Academy stories, interviewing Duke alongside his own granddaughter. 

Guest Bio 

Jim Paulk is a 1957 Naval Academy graduate, former submarine officer, and 26-year Procter & Gamble executive who later spent nearly a decade leading marine conservation efforts on the California coast. After retiring, he became an author, writing books that collect remarkable true stories — including one featuring 81 stories from 59 of his Naval Academy classmates. At 92, he’s still writing and still chasing the next project. He lives near Kingsland, Georgia. 

Guest Links 

Book — Shaking Up the World:  https://a.co/d/KyS3rh 

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/share/16FQCN7Kjg/ 

Guest CTA 

Get a copy of Jim’s book Shaking Up the World:  https://a.co/d/KyS3rh 

Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.
Email: [email protected]

Website:   https://www.projectcandor.com

Social Media

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/
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YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

“Every disappointment is for the better.”  — Stephanie Sylvestre 

Episode Summary 

Stephanie Sylvestre builds digital twins — AI versions of real people that can keep talking, teaching, and advising long after a conversation ends, and even after a life does. In this episode she walks Jeanne through what her company actually does: AI agents and digital twins grounded in a private “data vault” so they stay accurate and resist hallucination, all built to amplify people rather than replace them. 

From there the conversation ranges wide — preserving history “so your grandchildren's grandchildren can still interact with you,” using a twin as a judgment-free place to think, why banning AI is the lazy answer for nervous companies, and how purpose, chores, and kids today all tie back to the same question. It's threaded with real warmth, including the moment Jeanne's own teleprompter ate all her questions live on air — which turns out to prove Stephanie's whole point about tools that fail you versus technology that helps you think. 

Then it's Two Truths & A Lie: seven homes built by women volunteers, a 90-mile bike ride down A1A, and a passion for swimming. One of those isn't what it seems. Stephanie closes with the line her mother drilled into her as a kid — every disappointment is for the better — and an invitation into her ever-growing “friend farm.” 

Guest Bio 

Stephanie Sylvestre is a technologist and entrepreneur who's spent a decade insisting that AI should make us more human, not less. She's the co-founder and CEO of Avatar Buddy, where her team builds digital twins — AI versions of real people, grounded in a private data vault so they stay accurate and trustworthy. Her mission is simple: use AI to preserve people's stories and help them be the best version of themselves. 

Guest Links 

• Website:  https://avatarbuddy.ai/ 
• LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-a-sylvestre/ 
• Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/avatar_buddyai/ 
• YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/@AvatarBuddy 
• TikTok:  https://www.tiktok.com/@avatar_buddyai 

Guest CTA 

“Stephanie doesn't just talk about AI—she brings it to life with stories, strategies, and a contagious sense of possibility.” Stephanie offers a free 30-minute AI consult — reach her on LinkedIn or at [email protected]. 

Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.
Email: [email protected]

Website:   https://www.projectcandor.com

Social Media

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"Be the change you seek in the world." - Gandhi (paraphrased, as submitted by guest) 

 Episode Summary 

Kerisma Vere didn't arrive at her work in holistic wellness coaching through a degree program or a tidy career pivot. She arrived through the long way — through a full nervous breakdown in 2018 that left her unable to remember who she was, unable to cook, unable to leave the house. She describes it like a brain injury: the person who had relied on her mind to get through everything suddenly had no access to any of it. 

What followed was years of rebuilding — a relapse, emergency surgery when her colon ruptured, and a slow, non-linear climb back toward functioning. By early 2024, she says, she finally reached a place of genuine stability. Not the conditional stability she'd built before — tied to eighty pounds lost, a fitness routine, a coaching business, a marriage — but something quieter and more durable: a relationship with herself that doesn't depend on what she's doing or producing. 

 That's the heart of what Kerisma teaches: that real change doesn't come from pushing harder or setting the bar at perfect. It comes from meeting yourself where you are, steering the bus with all your parts still on board, and understanding that the future you will inherit whatever mess the present you makes. Her Two Truths and a Lie revealed a twist on what it took to write her first book — and brought the whole conversation to a warm, funny close. 

 Guest Bio 

Kerisma Vere is a holistic wellness coach and author whose path through trauma, addiction, and mental health challenges became the foundation for her work. She's the author of The Light Switch Myth and its companion journal Ways I Showed Up for Myself, and the creator of the course From Pressure to Path. Her approach is non-prescriptive, compassionate, and built for real life — not the highlight reel. 

Guest Links 

Website:  https://towardswellness.ca/ 

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerisma-vere-a327428/ 

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/towards_wellness_coaching_/ 

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/keri.vere 

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/@KerismaVere 

TikTok:  https://www.tiktok.com/@kerismavere 

Threads:  https://www.threads.com/@towards_wellness_coaching_ 

Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.
Email: [email protected]

Website:   https://www.projectcandor.com

Social Media

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Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/
YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

"A man is what he makes of himself." — Peter Gunn 

Episode Summary 

What happens inside the mind of someone who builds entire mythological universes? In this Ship’s Log, Jeanne sits down with Peter Gunn — a U.S. Air Force veteran who served twenty years, a bodybuilder, the lead guitarist of The Angellics, and a poet on a mission to bring epic poetry back from the past. Peter reveals that he writes every story backwards, starting from the ending he’s already seen in his mind. 

The conversation dives into why the hero’s journey never grows old, how his daughter’s birth exposed the missing feminine voice in classic literature and sparked The Amazons series, and how he invented Linked-Lyrical-Poetry (LLP) — a rap-influenced poetic language built for Gen Z and Gen Alpha readers. Peter performs a passage live, explains how LLP is helping veterans with PTSD find focus, and shares how a contracted studio project accidentally became a band. 

The episode closes with Two Truths & A Lie — and Peter’s three headlines include a childhood near-death experience, an invented poetic language, and a Mount Everest claim. Which one is made up? You’ll have to listen to the end. 

Guest Bio 

Peter Gunn is a U.S. Air Force veteran who served twenty years, an avid bodybuilder, and the lead guitarist for the band The Angellics. Inspired by his daughter, he wrote The Amazons series to restore the feminine voice in epic storytelling and invented a poetic format called Linked-Lyrical-Poetry to bring the classics to a new generation. His latest project is Sigma Squad, a graphic novel universe drawn from ancient texts. 

Guest Links 

• Website: https://www.petergunn.net/ 
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@petergunnpoetry 
• The Angellics on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2vECOl1UhrFzgnb1y7SFFT/discography/all 
• Feature — Women’s Insider: https://womensinsider.com/peter-gunn-rewriting-the-heros-journey-for-women-through-epic-poetry/ 
• Feature — Rolling Hype: https://rollinghype.com/from-poetry-to-power-ballads-the-renaissance-of-peter-gunn/ 

Guest CTA 

Visit https://www.petergunn.net/ to see Peter’s current and upcoming projects — The Amazons, Sigma Squad, and new music from The Angellics (albums: Raising Hades and Elysium Fields). 

Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.
Email: [email protected]

Website:   https://www.projectcandor.com

Social Media

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YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

“I was taught at a very young age that I could cope with life and deal with almost anything – one step at a time.” – R. Timmerman

Episode Summary 

Rand Timmerman enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1966 after hearing a radio report in an upstate New York bar — and nine months later found himself in a rice paddy in Vietnam. Decades later, four years into recovery from alcoholism and carrying an artificial knee, he stood on top of Springer Mountain, Georgia in a blizzard at age 72, setting out to hike the Appalachian Trail with his 71-year-old brother, Ron. 

In this Ship’s Log, Rand takes Jeanne from a frozen ten-foot standoff with the biggest black bear he’s ever seen, to five hours pinned inside a collapsing tent on a cliff edge in the Smokies, to the nightmares that followed him home from Vietnam and the recovery program that, in his words, gave him a whole new life — more joy at 80 than he ever had before. He walked 1,863 miles before a fall in Massachusetts ended his hike; Ron went on to finish all 2,200. 

The conversation closes with the lesson Rand’s father — a polio survivor who built a 20-foot boat in the family basement — taught him as a boy: deal with what life gives you, then cope with it, one step at a time. And of course, Rand brings three headlines to Two Truths & A Lie that all sound too wild to be true. 

Guest Bio 

Rand Timmerman is a Marine Corps veteran, retired attorney, and author. Born in a small upstate New York village with more cows than people, he served with the 1st Marines in Vietnam before an unlikely path took him to JAG school. At 72, he hiked 1,863 miles of the Appalachian Trail with his brother and captured the journey — and his recovery story — in his book A Spiritual Passage. 

Guest Links 

Website: http://randtimmerman.com 

Please visit Rand’s website, where the author discusses his book “A Spiritual Passage” and provides videos and other information about his journey. 

Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.
Email: [email protected]

Website:   https://www.projectcandor.com

Social Media

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YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

"The most important promotion you will ever earn is the one no one can give you. It begins the moment you stop waiting to be chosen and start choosing your own growth." 

— John Reaves 

Episode Summary 

John Reaves spent decades doing everything the corporate world told him to do — building the resume, earning the credentials, staying late, and checking every box. And still, something was missing. In this episode of Project Candor, John shares the moment he realized he had outsourced his own definition of progress — and what happened when he took it back. 

From three layoffs across a 30-year career to refusing to shred documents that could have cost him his job, John brings honesty and hard-won perspective to questions most professionals are afraid to ask themselves. He and Jeanne dig into what it means to separate identity from position, why health has to come before hustle, and what really changes when you stop waiting to be chosen. 

And in Two Truths & A Lie — John accidentally reveals the answer before Jeanne even has a chance to guess. The real story he hid behind the lie is worth the whole episode. 

Guest Bio 

John A. Reaves, PhD, is a corporate executive and the author of The Real Promotion — a book for professionals who are ready to stop waiting for permission and start defining success for themselves. After years chasing credentials and titles, he made a pivotal discovery: the most important promotion you'll ever earn is the one no one can give you. 

 Guest Links 

Website: https://www.johnareaves.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-reaves/

YouTube:  

 Guest CTA 

Visit https://johnareaves.com to learn more about The Real Promotion, access career development resources, watch short leadership videos, and connect with John directly. 

Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.
Email: [email protected]

Website:   https://www.projectcandor.com

Social Media

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/
LinkedIn:     https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/
YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

"Uncertainty and chaos aren't something to avoid — It's where freedom lives, and possibilities multiply." 

— Regina Huber 

Episode Summary 

Regina Huber has lived and worked across five continents — Germany, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, the US, and France — picking up languages, partner dances, and hard-won leadership lessons along the way. In this episode, she sits down with Jeanne Andersen to talk about what it really means to make a bold move, why "reinventing yourself" is a myth, and why your next chapter is already inside you. 

 Regina talks about leaving a BCG career to open a bed and breakfast in Buenos Aires when the whole city was moving in the other direction, how embodiment and dance have shaped her approach to leadership and presence, and the blind spots she sees again and again in even the most successful leaders. She also makes the case that uncertainty isn't a threat to manage — it's where freedom actually lives. 

And then there's the game. Two Truths and a Lie brings three wild headlines from Regina's life: a teenage hitchhiking trip from Bavaria to Amsterdam, a gun pressed to her head in Rio de Janeiro, and years of marathon training cut short just one week before race day. Only two of them happened. Listen to find out which one didn't. 

 Guest Bio 

Regina Huber is a transformational leadership coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who has built her life and career across five continents. She's the founder of Transform Your Performance and creator of the T.H.R.I.V.I.N.G. Leader Formula™, helping leaders and entrepreneurs lead with courage, authenticity, and freedom. 

 Guest Links 

Website:  https://www.transformyourperformance.com 

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/reginahuber/ 

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/@reginahuber 

Linktree:  https://transformyourperformance.com/sociallinks 

Guest CTA 

Ready to ditch outdated leadership paradigms? With my free guide Lead With Edge, you will discover how to shift to making bold moves. The T.H.R.I.V.I.N.G. Leader Formula™ helps you lead with freedom and authenticity, as a thriving leader with a thriving team, so you can stop playing small, break free from unnecessary stress, and create lasting results — without sacrificing your well-being or your team's trust. 

 CTA Link:  https://transformyourperformance.com/leadwithedge 

Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.
Email: [email protected]

Website:   https://www.projectcandor.com

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YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast