In this special bonus episode, I follow up on my conversation with Bree Rose, who shared her experience as the mother of Storm, her nonbinary teenager. I wanted to hear Storm’s perspective on their journey, and our conversation was fun, deep, and reminded me that young people today hold incredible wisdom and insight despite a world too often torn by polarization.

Now 17, Storm speaks candidly about beginning to question their gender identity at age 12, the relief of discovering that they did not have to fit into a prescribed box, and the safety they felt knowing their family’s love would not change. They also share what it means to experiment with how they present themselves and navigate a world that does not always make room for people who defy conventional expectations.

Storm brings both honesty and a roundedness far beyond their years to the everyday realities nonbinary and transgender young people can face -- from public scrutiny and other people’s discomfort to the anxiety of deciding which public restroom feels safest. Their experience makes visible the personal consequences of debates that can otherwise feel abstract or purely political. At the same time, Storm’s flourishing is a powerful testament to what becomes possible when someone can live in alignment with who they know themselves to be.

Together, Storm, Bree, and I explore the difference between making an honest mistake and refusing to learn; how families can offer fierce support without being able to protect their children from every hurt; and why grace does not require us to remain silent in the face of prejudice. We also discuss the value of curiosity and the importance of allowing people to tell us who they are.

Despite the challenges, Storm remains hopeful. They draw inspiration from people who advocate for change in ways large and small—from public protest to quiet acts of kindness, courage, and solidarity. Storm’s message is simple and powerful: as long as people keep trying, change remains possible.

In this episode, we explore:

• What Storm experienced when they first began questioning their gender identity
• Why their family’s love and support made it possible to speak openly
• The possibilities and limitations of identity labels
• What it feels like to move through public spaces as a nonbinary young person
• The difference between not yet understanding and refusing to understand
• How grace, learning, and advocacy can coexist
• Why everyday acts of courage give Storm hope

This episode is an invitation to listen to a young person describe their own life in their own words—and to approach complex questions about gender identity with greater curiosity, humility, and humanity.

Please follow The Space In Between podcast, leave a review and share on your social media plaforms.

Conversations about transgender youth and gender identity increasingly unfold in a highly polarized climate, where deeply personal decisions get pulled into cultural and political conflict. Behind those debates — and ongoing threats to the rights, safety, and well-being of transgender people — are real families trying to support their children and make consequential decisions without the benefit of certainty. In this episode, Leigh talks with Bree Rose about her family's path after her child, Storm, began questioning their gender identity at age 12.

Ultimately, they explore a question that reaches beyond parenting: how do we lead with love and grace when there's no consensus on the right answer? Bree and Leigh talk about staying grounded in values that don't bend, exercising judgment when there is no roadmap, and lessons she learned dealing with judgement from multiple sides.

Bree’s story centers on a mother’s love and a family determined to support and stand by Storm. It is also a story about navigating parental roles, choices about medical care, and the tension between what a child wants and what parents believe is best. Bree is careful to note that what her family experienced, and the choices they made, belong to them alone and that other loving, well-intended families may face different circumstances and reach different conclusions.

In this conversation, Leigh and Bree explore:

• Loving a child without having all the answers. Bree shares her initial uncertainty when Storm first raised the subject, and how she shifted from trying to "solve" the situation to listening, learning, and accompanying her child and other family members on an unfolding journey.
• Supporting identity while navigating parental responsibility. Bree and her husband gave Storm room to explore gender identity while deciding, as a family, that they needed more time before making choices about certain types of medical care — a choice made thoughtfully, not lightly.
• Living with other people's judgment. Bree describes criticism from people who felt her family wasn't supporting Storm in the right way, and how many families often face the opposite: harsh judgment for supporting a transgender child's identity at all. 
• Making room for different choices. Their conversation turns to how polarization can convert complicated, deeply personal decisions into harmful tests of allegiance — and why people who care about human dignity can disagree but also continue to center the flourishing and wellbeing of young people and their chosen expressions.

About Bree Rose

Bree is a Seattle-area leader, advocate, philanthropic impact advisor, and certified Dare to Lead™ facilitator whose professional experience spans finance, leadership development, philanthropy, and community engagement.

Permissions & Next Week's Bonus Episode: Bree, Storm, and their family have given permission for their story to be told. Next week's bonus episode features Storm themself, who shares their insights with similar clarity and warmth.

How to Support the Podcast: The Space In Between podcast is growing! Your help will amplify its impact and message. Please take a moment to leave a review and share the podcast with others on via social media and by sending to family, friends and colleagues. Together, we can turn the tide on polarization and stay fierce about values that we hold dear.

What does it really mean to be authentic—and who gets to decide? In this episode of The Space in Between, host Leigh Morgan talks with author, political strategist, and podcast host Maya Rupert about how race, gender, identity, and power influence who is perceived as “real,” trustworthy, and qualified.

Drawing from her book, The Real Ones: How to Disrupt the Hidden Ways Racism Makes Us Less Authentic, Maya challenges the idea that authenticity is simply a matter of “being yourself.” She and Leigh explore how code-switching and adapting to different environments can reflect awareness and agency—not dishonesty. In today’s divided and distrustful climate, understanding these dynamics can help us recognize the conditions shaping our choices while still acting from a place of clarity, dignity, and power.

Topics Leigh & Maya Explore

• Societal norms and dynamics influence perceptions of authenticity.
• The dynamics behind code-switching.
• How bias shapes our judgments of leaders.
• How grace, humility, and accountability can strengthen public life.

Key Takeaways

• Authenticity is not a fixed identity waiting to be uncovered. It develops through experience, reflection, relationships, and changing circumstances.
• Code-switching can be a strategic response to real social conditions. The important question is whether we are making conscious choices or losing contact with ourselves.
• Feeling misunderstood does not necessarily mean we have failed to be authentic. Sometimes the discomfort or incongruence exists in the observer’s expectations and biases.
• Authenticity can require effort. Working to live according to our values does not make those values less genuine.
• Agency includes knowing when to engage, when to step away, and when to ask an ally to enter a conversation that we do not have the safety or capacity to hold.
• Perceptions of identity, especially those outwardly expressed (race, ethnicity, gender identity, age, etc) must be acknowledged as influencing and shaping perceptions of authenticity.

Why This Matters

In polarized times, people are hungry for leaders who seem “real.” But when authenticity is poorly defined or we aren't aware of its variability, bias can quietly determine who receives trust, forgiveness, and the benefit of the doubt. By asking better questions—What do we mean by authentic? What assumptions are influencing our judgment? What conditions shape how someone shows up?—we can become more discerning citizens, more humane leaders, and more powerful agents in our own lives.

Practices to Try

• Interrogate your first assumptions: What you believed or wanted earlier in life is not automatically your most authentic truth. Give yourself permission to learn, reconsider, and grow.
• Ask the second question: When someone seems inauthentic, pause and ask what is creating that reaction. Is the person being dishonest—or are they behaving differently from what you expected?
• Lead with grace and humility: Remember that you rarely know another person’s full internal journey. Extend grace where human dignity and safety are present, while maintaining clear boundaries where they are not.

About Maya Rupert



Maya Rupert is an author, political strategist, and former presidential campaign leader whose work explores race, gender, power, and democracy. She is the author of The Real Ones: How to Disrupt the Hidden Ways Racism Makes Us Less Authentic and the host of the NAACP Image Award–nominated podcast When We Win, a limited series featuring women of color who successfully challenged political conventions and transformed the way campaigns are run.

If you enjoyed this episode, let us know! Please share with a friend or colleague and leave a review on your podcast platform.

What does it take to stay in the game when life doesn't go your way? In this engaging and deeply personal conversation, Space In Between host Leigh Morgan welcomes back longtime friend, former tech CEO, author, TEDx speaker, and fellow Duke University athlete Everett Harper for a conversation that begins on the playing field—but quickly expands into leadership, resilience, and what it means to stay connected in turbulent times.

Drawing on stories from their years competing at Duke—Everett as a national championship soccer player and Leigh as a standout point guard for the Blue Devils—they revisit memorable victories, painful losses, difficult teammates, legendary competitors, and the coaches who shaped them. Together, they explore how the lessons learned in elite athletics continue to influence the way they lead organizations, navigate adversity, and show up for others.

At a time when many people feel exhausted by polarization, uncertainty, and declining trust, Leigh and Everett offer a refreshing reminder that resilience isn't a solo pursuit. Staying in the game requires agency, connection, humility, and the willingness to lean on teammates when the pressure is greatest. Through laughter, candid storytelling, and thoughtful reflection, they reveal why some of life's most enduring leadership lessons were learned long before either stepped into the executive suite.

In this solo episode of The Space in Between host Leigh Morgan explores how to stay awake, engaged, and fully human in a time when fear, outrage, political division, and emotional overwhelm can sometimes constrict our capacity to lead and be our fullest selves. Drawing from her own experience responding to the 2025 dismantling of USAID, Leigh reflects on what happens when we care deeply about suffering in the world — but find ourselves consumed by doomscrolling, dread, and the constant churn of unsettling headlines. The episode offers a powerful invitation to creating inner spaciousness, where we stay awake, but do not let fear consume us.

Leigh shares practices to feel grief without drowning in it, hold conviction without hardening, and reclaim agency even when we cannot control the outcome. She shares her personal journey, reflecting on her global development work in sub-Saharan Africa and northeastern India, insights from psychology, and how a powerful podcast conversation with Kaye Foster about reflective practice, leadership, and hope helped her remember and reclaim agency. The result is a timely and deeply human reflection on how we keep our hearts open, our minds clear, and our spirits steady in chaotic times.

Key messages:

• Fear is human, but it does not have to lead - Leigh names fear, dread, and grief as normal responses to real suffering and real uncertainty. The goal is not to deny those feelings, but to keep them from occupying more space inside us than we want to give them.
• Negativity bias and emotional contagion are real - Our brains are wired to notice threat, and our social systems often amplify fear, outrage, and grievance. Understanding these dynamics helps us respond with more awareness and less reactivity.
• Doomscrolling can feel like responsibility, but left unchecked can become constriction - Staying informed matters. But there is a difference between learning what we need to know and repeatedly consuming information that leaves us depleted, anxious, or numb.
• Agency is not always about controlling the outcome - Leigh reminds us that agency does not mean we can single-handedly change policy or prevent suffering. Sometimes agency begins with reclaiming our inner ground — how we breathe, what we notice, where we place our attention, and how we choose to show up.
• Inner spaciousness is where personal and collective agency can flourish - Inner spaciousness allows us to bear witness, work for justice, remain connected, and resist becoming hardened by fear or despair.

Check out the detailed show notes on the Space In Between website: http://spaceinbetweenpodcast.com/culvivating-inner-spaciousness/

What happens when data challenges something you deeply believe — something that has shaped your identity, your work, and your moral compass? In this episode of The Space In Between, Leigh sits down with Alice Shobe for a powerful conversation about feminism, boys and men, blind spots, and what it takes to expand our frame without abandoning our convictions.

Alice has spent her life pushing into spaces that were not designed for women and building pathways of opportunity for people too often left out. But when she read Richard Reeves’ Of Boys and Men, she found herself confronted by data she could not ignore: boys falling behind in education, men dying by suicide at alarming rates, and men drifting away from many of the caregiving and service professions society urgently needs. Rather than see this as a threat to her commitment to women’s equality, Alice began asking a harder question: what am I not seeing?

In this conversation, Leigh and Alice explore what it means to hold two truths at once: that women and girls still face real barriers to equality and opportunity, and that boys and men are also struggling in ways that deserve serious, compassionate, evidence-based attention. Alice shares how her own story — from being the only girl on an all-boys hockey team after Title IX, to growing up as a fraternal twin with a brother, to leading in corporate and nonprofit spaces — shaped her commitment to opportunity. She also reflects on what it was like to raise the topic of boys and men inside women-centered spaces, where the reaction was often mixed, protective, and deeply human.

Key Themes:

• Alice's op-ed for the Puget Sound Business Journal Leadership "Expert Confronts Blind Spot After Decades Championing Women's Opportunity"
• How new data can reveal blind spots without requiring us to abandon our values
• Why personal story can open conversations that data alone cannot
• What it means to be willing to be misunderstood in service of a larger truth
• How “yes, and” can help us stay curious in moments of discomfort or disagreement

1. Expanding the frame without abandoning conviction

2. What the data reveals about boys and men

3. The emotional complexity of being misunderstood

4. Practicing “yes, and” in a polarized world without giving ourselves away

We live in a time when many public conversations push us into either/or thinking: either you care about women or you care about men, either you stay loyal to your cause or you are betraying it. Alice’s story offers a different path. She reminds us that conviction can expand, that curiosity can strengthen rather than weaken our values, and that asking “what am I not seeing?” may be one of the most important leadership practices of our time.

Alice Shobe is a respected leader whose career has focused on expanding opportunity, strengthening communities, and addressing inequities across the corporate, nonprofit, housing, homelessness, philanthropy, and workforce development sectors. She has held senior leadership roles at Amazon and in the nonprofit sector, serves on the board of Jobs for the Future, and is a founding board member of the American Institute for Boys and Men. A longtime advocate for women’s equality and opportunity, Alice brings to this conversation a rare combination of moral clarity, humility, and curiosity.

There are conversations that do more than inform us, they recalibrate us. This episode with Sherri Mitchell (Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset) is that kind of conversation: a profound, clear-eyed, and ultimately hopeful exploration of how we stay grounded as leaders and community members in an often dehumanizing time. Sherri calls us to cultivatie connection, accountability, deep humanity, and integrity with ourselves, one another and the living Earth we call home.

Sherri— Indigenous attorney, activist, wisdom keeper, teacher, and author of Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change — joins host Leigh Morgan for a powerful conversation about what it means to move through this moment without hardening, numbing out, or giving up. Together, Sherri and Leigh examine the deeper spiritual and relational crises underneath today’s political division, climate anxiety, violence, social fragmentation, and institutional collapse — while centering a more optimistic path forward rooted in interdependence, mutual care, accountability, and reconnection.

At the heart of this conversation is a powerful invitation: to move from separation toward interdependence. Sherri names the illusion of separation as one of the great spiritual wounds of our time — the belief that we are somehow separate from one another, from the Earth, and from the consequences of our choices. In its place, she offers a vision rooted in Indigenous wisdom: right relationship, emotional maturity, accountability, and reconnection with the living world.

This episode is not about bypassing the pain of this moment. It is about learning how to move through it with greater courage, humility, and responsibility. Sherri helps us understand that we are living through a painful transition — hospicing an old paternalistic paradigm while trying to midwife something more life-giving, collaborative, and humane. That transition requires grief. It requires accountability. And it requires us to grow up — individually, collectively, spiritually, and as a species.

In this episode, we explore:

• The spiritual work of reconnection — how the illusion of separation fuels division, dehumanization, ecological harm, and the loss of right relationship.
• The shift from independence to interdependence — why mutual care, shared responsibility, cooperation, and accountability are essential for a healthier future.
• Grief as part of transformation — what it means to hospice an old paradigm while midwifing something more humane, life-giving, and spiritually mature.
• The sacred leadership we need now — how humility, emotional maturity, accountability, maternal wisdom, and grounded connection can help us lead without hardening or numbing out.

About Sherri Mitchell

Sherri is a graduate of the University of Arizona’s Rogers College of Law, specializing in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy. She is an alumna of the American Indian Ambassador Program and the Udall Native American Congressional Internship Program.. In addition to her book, Sacred Instructions, she is also a contributor to eleven anthologies, including the bestseller All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, and Resetting Our Future: Empowering Climate Action in the United States. Sherri is also the founding Director of the Land Peace Foundation, an organization dedicated to the preservation of Indigenous rights and the protection of the Indigenous way of life. She serves as a Trustee for the American Indian Institute, as an Advisory Council member for Nia Tero’s Indigenous Land Guardianship Program, and as a board member for the Post Carbon Institute. Check out her website and order her book: https://www.sacredinstructions.

Check out Sherri's substack: https://substack.com/@sherrimitchellwehnahamukwasset

Check out the full show notes at http://spaceinbetweenpodcast.com/sacred-instructions-sherri-mitchell/

In a polarized world, it’s become easy to assume that the other side is broken, deficient, dangerous, or beyond repair; and if we are honest, sometimes it really feels this way. But if this is our dominant mindset, creativity, trust, accountability, and connection can be eclipsed by pessimism about what 'could be'. In this episode, host Leigh Morgan explores a different starting place which she calls the Three R's—Remember, Reframe, Reclaim — a novel framework for staying grounded, high agency, and deeply human in times marked by division, distrust, and uncertainty.

Drawing from personal reflection, leadership experience, and lessons from systems change work, Leigh examines how many of us have been conditioned into a “fix-it” orientation — constantly diagnosing what’s wrong in ourselves, our teams, institutions, and society. While problem-solving remains essential, Leigh asks whether polarized times require something more relational, expansive, and generative alongside it.

Through stories from leading in some of the world's most innovative organizations, Leigh explores how the Three R’s can operate at multiple levels — personally, relationally, organizationally, and systemically. The Three R's:

Remember. Resist reducing ourselves or others to stereotypes, failures, or political identities.

Reframe. Move beyond “What’s broken?” toward “What’s already working and what’s possible?”

Reclaim. Stay intentional and high agency instead of being pulled into reactivity, fear, and outrage.

This episode is not about abandoning accountability, or jettisoning problem solving approaches to hard challenges. It’s about exploring how we remain thoughtful, connected, and effective without losing ourselves to polarization. Key take aways include:

• Why a constant “fix-it” mindset can unintentionally deepen fear and defensiveness in low-trust environments
• The relational cost of reducing people to sides, stereotypes, and moral categories
• How leadership changes when we begin from capability and possibility instead of deficiency
• What asset-based community development teaches us about strengths, latent capacity, and systems change
• How trust-based philanthropy at Nia Tero flipped the script on traditional, 'respond to us' working practices
• Why reclaiming agency may be one of the most important leadership practices in polarized times
• How to stay politically engaged and accountable -- without mirroring the same harmful rhetoric we oppose -- can be achieved

A shift away from immediately reducing ourselves or others to deficiency, failure, or political identity — and toward remembering our humanity, capability, and creative abilities.

Moving beyond “What’s broken?” toward broader questions like:

• What’s already working?
• What strengths or capacities already exist?
• What possibilities become visible when fear and reactivity aren’t driving the frame?

Asserting, in moments where fear, outrage, or polarization tempts us to be reactive, our agency to make choices regardless of circumstance.

Reflection Questions

• Where am I operating primarily from deficiency or fear?
• What assumptions am I making about what — or who — is “broken”?
• What strengths, capacities, or possibilities might I be overlooking?
• What is actually mine to do in this moment?
• How do I stay engaged and accountable without losing my own center?

If this episode resonates with you, share it with someone you care about — someone you want to be in deeper conversation with.

And if you haven’t already, follow The Space In Between and leave a review.

Check out TSIB website at http://spaceinbetweenpodcast.com/remember-reframe-reclaim/

What does it look like to carry authority with humility? In this thoughtful and deeply human conversation, Leigh Morgan sits down with Bartow County, Georgia’s Chief Magistrate Judge Brandon Bryson — whose life and leadership have been shaped by family, faith, service, and a profound respect for the people who enter his courtroom. Presiding over cases that touch every corner of community life has given Judge Bryson a grounded understanding of how easily making assumptions (including about ideology) can mask nuanced realities. And, a how important it is to lead with both curiosity and humanity. Together, they explore how we can all hold people accountable without losing sight of their dignity, why listening can change what we think we know, and how everyday encounters can become opportunities for fairness, and connection. As Judge Bryson notes “compassion doesn’t remove accountability. It helps us make better decisions.”

In this episode, Leigh and Judge Bryson explore:

• How growing up in Cartersville shaped Brandon’s commitment to service
• The values his parents modeled through hard work, tenderness, and sacrifice
• Why magistrate court is often called “the people’s court”
• What eviction cases, warrants, and small claims reveal about everyday struggle
• The difference between judging a case and judging a person
• How compassion and accountability can exist in the same courtroom
• What he learned from the Presidential Leadership Scholars Program
• Why listening for someone’s “why” can open up a different kind of conversation

Why this conversation matters

So many people are moving through the world carrying fear, stress, shame, or uncertainty that others may never see.

Judge Bryson’s courtroom gives him a front-row seat to those realities. People come before him facing the possibility of losing housing, income, freedom, or stability — and he has learned that even a brief moment of respect can stay with someone for years.

Learn More About this Episode

Check out the full show notes at www.https://spaceinbetweenpodcast.com/justice-mercy-judge-bryson/

Pease leave a review and pass this along to a friend!

What if the spaces you move through every day are quietly shaping your mood, your relationships—and even your sense of agency and hope? In this episode, Leigh sits down with renowned designer Elizabeth MacPherson-Hearn to explore the powerful idea that there is no such thing as a neutral space. Together, they unpack how the environments we inhabit influence how grounded, connected, and open we feel—especially in a time marked by division and uncertainty.

Through the lens of biophilia, Elizabeth offers both a deeper understanding and practical ways to transform any space—home, office, or community—into a place that restores calm, dignity, and human connection. In a world where so many feel unmoored, anxious, or disconnected, this conversation brings us back to something both ancient and accessible: our relationship to place.

Elizabeth defines biophilia as our innate, cellular-level need to connect with nature—and explains how it shows up in three powerful ways:

• Direct connection (light, water, nature itself)
• Indirect connection (materials, patterns, textures inspired by nature)
• Spatial design (how spaces create safety, curiosity, and calm through elements like “prospect and refuge”)

Together, Leigh and Elizabeth explore how these principles aren’t just aesthetic—they’re deeply human. They influence our nervous systems, our ability to think clearly, and even our capacity to connect with one another. At a time when many of us spend 85–95% of our lives indoors, the question becomes: What if our spaces could actively support our wellbeing instead of depleting it?

Elizabeth shares stories from her work designing schools and public spaces—including how thoughtful design can transform how children learn, engage, and feel in their bodies. She also reflects on how even small choices—light, materials, patterns—can dramatically shift our experience of a space. Most importantly, this episode isn’t about perfect design or privilege. It’s about awareness and agency. Because as Elizabeth reminds us: When you walk into a space and it feels good—there’s a reason.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• Why there is no such thing as a neutral space
• The science and psychology behind biophilia
• How design impacts stress, focus, and emotional wellbeing
• The concept of “prospect and refuge”—and why you always want the booth
• How patterns in nature (like fractals) calm the brain
• Why modern life has disconnected us—and how to gently reconnect
• Practical ways to bring grounding, beauty, and calm into your everyday spaces

A Few Questions to Carry With You:

• What spaces in your life make you feel most like yourself?
• Where do you feel calm, open, or connected—and why?
• What small shift could you make to bring more light, texture, or nature into your day?

Why This Conversation Matters

At its core, this episode is about reclaiming a sense of agency in uncertain times. When the world feels loud, divided, or overwhelming, place becomes a quiet but powerful ally.

By tending to the spaces around us, we begin to steady ourselves within. And from that place—we’re better able to engage, connect, and lead with intention.

About Elizabeth MacPherson-Hearn

As a leader at the internationally acclaimed architecture firm Mithun, Elizabeth translates visionary thinking into grounded, human-centered spaces. She brings a keen awareness of sensory experience and how people move through daily life, seamlessly blending interior design with architecture to create environments that feel intuitive and connected from the moment you enter. Her deep knowledge of sustainable materials allows her to design spaces that create long-term value across both public and private sectors.

A strong listener with a background rooted in physiology, Elizabeth designs places that people don’t just use—but feel. Her work is guided by a deep understanding of biophilia—the innate, sensory connection between humans and the natural world—which she lectures on nationally.