Ready Living Podcast

The price of food doesn’t actually tell us what it costs to produce it. For Dom Altomari, uncovering those hidden costs is essential to understanding what a truly sustainable food system would look like. They have spent much of their career following the connections between food and sustainability, from their beginnings in professional kitchens to more recent work in advocacy and communications.

While a package of meat at the grocery store has a dollar price on it, that number doesn’t reflect the full costs of producing it. Left out of the equation are the land, water, fertilizer, pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and impact on local communities, workers, and the animals themselves.

Dom asks us to look honestly at what happens when we build our food system on a foundation that often harms the communities and environment we depend on. They argue that a sustainable food system needs to consider more than emissions. It also needs to look at public health, food accessibility, food waste, and natural resources.

They point out that animal welfare can’t be separated from conversations about sustainability. They discuss the conditions animals experience in industrial agriculture, the human toll on workers in slaughterhouses and meatpacking facilities, and the health risks that can emerge from highly concentrated food systems.

Dom calls on individuals to create pressure on corporations and policymakers while asking harder questions about where food comes from, who produced and processed it, what impact that production has on the land and water, and what costs and harms may not be reflected in the price.

Ultimately, Dom challenges the idea that humans exist apart from nature and that food production, public health, biodiversity loss, climate change, and animal suffering are separate issues. They are interconnected parts of the same ecosystem, and understanding those connections will help us build a food system that is sustainable for people, animals, and the planet.

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For many federal workers, federal employment used to represent pride in public service, professional identity, community, and stability, along with a sense that established rules and procedures would provide some measure of security.

When that sense of security was disrupted by massive federal workforce terminations and layoffs that began in early 2025, the psychological consequences were often severe.

In this Ready Living Podcast episode, Roz Beroza, LCSW-C, shares how she recognized an urgent unmet need, which led to the creation of Therapy4Feds, an online network of mental health providers offering services to discharged federal workers at no or reduced cost.

The network includes psychiatrists, psychologists, clinical social workers, licensed professional counselors, and marriage and family therapists who volunteer their expertise.

Roz talks about how mental health support can be an important part of dealing with the unique circumstances of destabilizing job loss among federal workers, a loss that affects not just the workers themselves, but also their family members and loved ones.

This episode looks at the connection between work, identity, public service, and mental health, offering a clearer understanding of the emotional impact of massive job loss and the resources available through Therapy4Feds to help former federal workers navigate it all.

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What does it take to find purpose in midlife after achieving career success?

Stephen Keys, co-founder of The Wisdom Vault , a community dedicated to helping people navigate midlife and beyond with greater purpose, meaning, and impact, and host of The Giving Habit podcast, shares why the second half of life can become our most meaningful chapter.

After decades of professional and financial success, he found himself at a crossroads, realizing that achievement alone couldn’t answer deeper questions like how do I contribute, what brings me joy, where do I direct my energy, and what kind of impact do I actually want to have.

That became the catalyst for a new way of living, a shift from self-orientation and traditional achievement to orienting towards others in order to create meaningful impact. He believes that when we are of service to others, we put our own hardships and challenges into context and gain clarity about our own lives.

He also encourages people to discover the strengths of their communities and start thinking about how they can build upon those strengths as opposed to the standard focus on deficiencies. He considers that a more optimistic way of thinking about progress and growth.

Today, he helps people move from success to significance, suggesting they navigate midlife by staying curious, investing in relationships, and using their time and talents to make a positive difference and build a meaningful legacy.

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Our trauma doesn’t define who we are, says trauma recovery educator Barb Varcl Smith.

Drawing from her own experience growing up in communist Czechoslovakia amid political persecution, poverty, and prolonged uncertainty, she explains how the mind develops protective responses that help people survive difficult environments, but that are often maladaptive in the long run. These survival responses become deeply embedded, shaping relationships, self-worth, decision-making, and everyday behavior long after the original circumstances have passed.

Rather than criticizing ourselves, however, we should ask "What is this behavior or thought trying to protect me from?" She describes the trauma responses of fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and what she calls "fake resilience," the appearance of functioning while remaining emotionally disconnected. She also discusses inherited patterns, learned behaviors, and the ways children absorb emotional environments from those around them.

She explains how rebuilding inner strength, self-love, intuition, wisdom, and purpose can help people reconnect with who they are beyond trauma. She also shows how individual healing can create ripple effects throughout families and future generations, helping break generational cycles. She offers a structured framework for recovery, showing how healing can move people beyond survival and toward living with greater freedom and intention.

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In 2019, Catherine Bass’s husband died in an accident, leaving her to raise their two children on her own. In this Ready Living Podcast episode, she shares what it means to rebuild one’s identity and life after widowhood.

She talks candidly about the shock of those early days and the cost of burying grief rather than facing it, a pattern she'd learned decades earlier after losing three young nephews in a house fire. She carried that same behavior into her husband's death, until a health scare and hospital stay forced her to confront how unwell she truly was.

She describes the isolation many widows feel, how discomfort with grief causes some friends to disappear, and how those who stay often offer well-meaning but unsolicited advice instead of the quiet presence she says widows actually need.

Catherine brings a practical, financial lens to the conversation as well, walking through some of the financial challenges widows face in the early weeks and months, the pressure to make major decisions before they're ready, and the predatory behavior, especially online, that targets many of them.

She offers a look at widowhood that treats the emotional and financial realities as inseparable parts of the same recovery, and lays out a three-step framework she uses to help clients.

Catherine is an Enrolled Agent (a federally licensed tax professional) and the owner of Bass Tax Service and Bass Tax Relief. She is a contributing author to Unbreakable Spirit, where her chapter "From Tears to Treasure" describes her own path through grief and financial uncertainty. On her TikTok account she offers practical advice widows can immediately implement.

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Attorney Sam Imperati is a full-time mediator and Executive Director of ICM Resolutions who has spent decades helping individuals, businesses, and institutions find their way out of conflict without the punishing costs of traditional litigation, bringing a multidisciplinary background to some of the most entrenched disputes imaginable.

He's critical of American culture’s deeply ingrained litigation reflex, describing the impulse to ‘lawyer up’ the minute someone feels wronged as the pursuit of revenge deceptively dressed up as the pursuit of justice. The adversarial structure of litigation consumes time, money, and emotional energy, often leaving people worse off for having gone through it.

Although his journey into dispute resolution began with litigation, over time he saw the same pattern repeating; even when clients won, they rarely walked away feeling satisfied. A stint as a part-time judge confirmed what he suspected—the system, however necessary in some circumstances, routinely overpromises and underdelivers. He became a full-time mediator and never looked back.

One of the distinctions Sam draws is between settlements and resolutions, terms many use interchangeably but which describe very different outcomes. A settlement is when everyone walks away unhappy, while a resolution is when underlying business and personal needs are reasonably satisfied. Compliance rates for resolutions are significantly higher since people are more likely to honor agreements they feel are fair than ones they feel pressured into accepting.

Before committing exclusively to alternative dispute resolution, Sam represented individuals and labor unions in private practice and served as Nike's assistant corporate counsel for litigation. He has been listed in Best Lawyers in America for ADR and Mediation Practice since 2006, and has taught at the University of Oregon School of Law, Willamette University's Graduate School of Management, and Lewis and Clark Law School.

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In 2024, around 44,000 people died of gun-related injuries in the United States, which includes both homicides and suicides. Spencer Cantrell, JD, co-lead of the National ERPO Resource Center at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions within Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health, is working to reduce that number.

In this Ready Living Podcast episode, she explains how extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs), often called red flag laws, are civil legal tools that can help protect people from gun violence by intervening before tragedy occurs.

ERPOs enable a petitioner to ask a court to temporarily remove firearms from someone who is making threats or engaging in threatening behavior, and to bar that person from legally obtaining firearms for the duration of the order.

Twenty-two states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands currently have ERPO laws on the books, covering more than half of the country’s population.

Spencer walks through the ERPO process, from the initial filing to the final hearing where all parties have the opportunity to present evidence. She addresses how due process is included at every stage and the factors courts consider when deciding whether to grant or deny an ERPO.

She also explains how ERPOs can work in conjunction with traditional domestic violence protection orders. ERPOs focus solely on firearms, while domestic violence protection orders carry broader relief. Knowing what each tool does and when to use them can make a critical difference for survivors seeking safety.

This episode is essential listening for survivors, advocates, attorneys, and anyone who wants to understand how the law can step in to protect people at risk.

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Born in Madagascar, Liva RJ's early years were marked by tragedy, instability, and frequent moves between countries, languages, and socioeconomic realities. Hypervigilance became a way to survive and adapt.

Later, her career took her inside some of the world's most influential institutions, from working as a journalist at Bloomberg and the Financial Times to sitting down with leaders at the World Economic Forum at Davos, before spending five years as a Malagasy diplomat heading international communications for the office of the president. At close range, she’s seen how power operates.

After surviving 9/11, she started asking what a life aligned with her deepest values, one oriented around inner peace rather than hustle-culture achievement, could look like. The answer involved a derelict 16th-century farmhouse in France’s Loire Valley that she began restoring seven years ago.

Today she hosts retreats for women who’ve lost themselves in overachievement or survival mode and realize something needs to change. The Joy Oasis offers a restorative environment without phones, social media, or the need to perform.

In this Ready Living Podcast episode, she shares how regulating one's nervous system means having the internal resources to meet difficulty without being consumed by it. Liva describes it as “the ultimate act of rebellion.”

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Is the law doing enough to keep pace with the internet and technology? Attorney and political columnist Bennet Kelley, founder of the Internet Law Center, has seen what happens when tech moves fast but the legal system moves slowly.

In this Ready Living Podcast episode, he talks about a wide range of issues, from the shielding of online platforms from legal liability, the absence of a federal anti-doxing law, and AI research companies’ use of artists' work without their permission, to social media’s impact on children and teenagers.

Underneath it all is the question: just because we can build something, does that mean we should?

He shares the personal experience that shaped why he believes so strongly in standing up against the misuse of power, and why that matters now more than ever.

Bennet’s boutique firm offers legal and policy solutions to entrepreneurial businesses. He's advised the Justice Department on technology-facilitated abuse, and fought for victims of online harassment. He’s also a five time winner of the LA Press Club's Southern California Journalism Award. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from American University, and a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University.

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People are feeling a lot of stress and insecurity around work these days, says award-winning workplace mental health expert Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio, and it's fundamentally because too often they’re treated not as valued members of an organization in their own right, but merely as something from which to extract productivity.

With 30 years of experience, including nearly two decades overseeing behavioral health at a Fortune 500 company, he has seen workplace culture at both its best and worst. The worst includes employees who feel undervalued and disposable, supervisors who are promoted without being adequately prepared to lead, and senior leaders quietly planning the next round of layoffs while publicly claiming people are their greatest asset. The best, he argues, starts with something simpler than most organizations realize, namely a good immediate supervisor who understands that workplace health spans physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and financial wellbeing.

He takes a clear-eyed look at why somewhere between 50% and 85% of Americans report being unhappy at work, and warns against tying one's identity too closely to a particular job or title.

He's sharply critical of layoffs as a standard corporate response to financial pressure, referencing Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, author of Dying for a Paycheck, whose research shows that mass layoffs generally don't improve stock prices, hurt productivity, destroy institutional knowledge, and damage those who remain.

Drawing on his own experience of being laid off from a position he loved, he shares the importance of focusing equally on three things: the job you're contracted for, the ongoing work of stewarding your own career, and the managing of your personal finances. The last of the three, he notes, is especially critical in the United States, where the absence of a strong social safety net can quickly escalate financial vulnerability.

How power is viewed is also fundamental to workplace health. Ken draws a distinction between "power over," namely domination, ranking, and punishment, and "power with," which rests on shared responsibility, collaboration, and the belief that different perspectives make organizations stronger rather than harder to control. Leaders and organizations that operate from the second model tend to grow their collective strength, he argues.

Ken earned his bachelor’s degree in bio-psychology at Cornell University and his master’s degree in social work at Hunter College of the City University of New York. He completed a three year intensive post-graduate program in family therapy at The Multicultural Family Institute in Highland Park, New Jersey.

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