Unstuck and Alive

"This story is about you. You're the angry guy in the story."

Alex Knoop's business partner told him that in 2024, after two storms hit Houston six weeks apart and Alex hit a wall running operations for the restoration company they own together. Max had just read the Working Genius book Alex gave him. A month later, Alex told him he was right.

Alex co-founded WayForward with Todd Pinkston and has guided backcountry trips for twenty years. He talks about the 2013 hailstorm that almost wrecked the first trip, why a 35-year-old is a lot like a 17-year-old, the six months he and Todd tried to share one seat, and why he'd rather be the assistant coach.

Listen in, especially if you've gotten very good at a job you aren't wired for.

00:00 A burned-out founder called out by his partner

03:41 An untested route, and the call to turn back

06:43 Make a plan, hold it loosely

09:52 A quiet, gangly kid short on confidence

11:40 What he hopes his kids know

14:29 Wired to explore, and "missing the boat" in his 20s

18:27 At 22, faith moves from do's and don'ts to freedom

19:18 "A 35-year-old is a lot like a 17-year-old"

21:52 Dropping the mask at home (and Steven's get-along shirt)

25:33 Kristen, conflict, and switching formats

28:55 Buying a company with his best friend

31:15 Two storms, a wall, and "You're the angry guy in the story"

34:21 How an engineer ends up in the ops seat

36:21 Advice to 25-year-old Alex: "I wish my title was Friend"

38:24 "Work means being in the chair"

41:30 The next 44 years

42:45 Burgers, a whiteboard, and how WayForward started

45:51 Six months in the same seat

47:58 The offsite feedback, and the guy between big picture and details

52:22 Every position on the field, and maps that lie

55:32 Three-game winner: why he'd rather be the assistant coach

58:03 How do you stay where your boots are while running a business?

1:02:11 Why he keeps inviting people into the backcountry

1:06:40 "Meathead": Todd and Alex on twenty years of friendship

1:10:58 An open invite for 2027

Unstuck and Alive Podcast with Todd Pinkston & Steven J. Neuner, authors of Unstuck and Alive https://www.unstuckandalive.com/

WayForward Adventures: https://www.wayforwardadventures.com/

Josh Self was one of the youngest CFPs in the country, and twenty years into a successful financial planning practice he hit the thing he'd watched clients hit for two decades: "I thought this was going to be different." Then the harder version: "I have no idea who I am."

He grew up moving every two or three years, nine schools between kindergarten and twelfth grade, and got very good at reading a room, finding the cool kids, and acting like them. It worked into his 30s. It also had him leading a business through depression and anxiety behind a smile, one mask at the office and another at home.

This conversation with Todd Pinkston and Steven J. Neuner covers what he did about it: therapy, in a family where that wasn't done; two real friends instead of the deal friends he'd been collecting; and an adventure podcast that started as a hobby and ended up rebranding his firm. It also gets into money, from a planner who includes himself in the diagnosis. Everyone has a money script, and Josh's traces to a $10 bat bag his dad bought him right after getting demoted. Clients at every level of net worth ask him the same question, "Is it enough?", and he admits the fear is in his own DNA.

For any high achiever who got what they wanted and still feels the drift. "You don't get to the other side of that without doing the work."

In 2011, Bo Barron went home and told his wife he had just lost a quarter of a million dollars. Then he went to people he saw at church on Sunday and said, "I just lost all your money. Give me a little time, but you'll get it all back."

Bo is a former Marine, a second-generation commercial real estate guy who bought the company from his dad and then sold it all to co-found HearthStone Capital. He's the kind of leader who shows up in a room and you can tell what he loves. He's also a recovering people pleaser who once started an insurance company on a handshake with a partner he never vetted, and it failed fast. His diagnosis, years later: "I fell in love with the idea of the future and I ignored the realities of the present."

This conversation runs from a church camp in Litchfield, Kentucky, where a hog farmer in a John Deere hat gave a 10-year-old the Gospel "Barney style," to a Marine recruiter who said he wasn't smart enough, to a first Sunday at boot camp where a man from a family of "a large amount of emotional control" wept for an hour and knew exactly what he was going to do with his life. It lands on a question Bo can't stop thinking about: if there's only one real Leader, what does that make the rest of us?

For any builder who's ever wondered what would happen if the deal went sideways and everybody knew.

Connect with Bo: barroncommercial.com | Commercially Speaking podcast: youtube.com/@commerciallyspeaking

For 15 years, Landon Sheets had a clean answer to "What do you do?" He built Concord Medical Group with his dad and brother and ran it as COO. Then a sale fell through, he stepped back from the day-to-day, and the clean answer went away. What followed was a years-long wrestle with a question most successful men never say out loud: if I'm not the title, then who am I?

Landon is one of 10 kids, chairman of the WayForward Adventures board, an ultra runner, and a dad of five. In this conversation he traces where the striving started ("you get noticed, you get a pat on the back, when you make a splash"), why the most impactful things in his life have almost never been measurable in the moment, and how one text message ("Thursday mornings at 6am. I'll be on my back porch. Awesome coffee.") became a prayer group that has met for three years without a single flop. Plus: the night his four-year-old daughter asked, "Hey Dad, are you listening to me?", and a Wind River horseback ride that went from 80 degrees to hypothermia.

If your identity has been quietly welded to what you produce, this hour is for you.

Andrew Schultz built Arrowhead Land Company into a seven-state rural real estate brokerage. For years, though, he was a man crying out to the Lord and not feeling His presence. He'd sit in rooms full of spiritual men who talked about hearing from God, and he kept praying, "Hey God, I'm down here too."

In this fireside conversation, Andrew tells the story of the moment on trail that changed everything: a prayer, a hummingbird, and the realization that he'd been treating God as secondary to everything else in his life. We get into the chip on his shoulder that fueled his early years as an entrepreneur, why he stopped hiding the imperfect parts of himself from the men he leads, what legacy really means once you've watched families fight over inherited land, and the daily rhythms that keep him unstuck: praying in the moment, staying in the Word, being a sponge.

If you've ever felt like everyone else hears from God but you, this one is for you.

Andrew is a husband, a dad with a son on the way, a lifelong hunter, and host of the Tied to the Land podcast. Find him at arrowheadlandcompany.com. His cell is literally on the website.

Rodney Adams did everything right. Rural West Texas upbringing, every sports team, church every Sunday. And by his mid-twenties he was managing a liquor store outside Lubbock, looking at the men twenty years ahead of him on that same path, and thinking: I'm going to die here.

What followed was a Marine Corps career where he "never had a bad day," a Goldman Sachs seat that left him asking "what have I done?", and a quiet stretch reading Scripture in a parking garage at dawn while his peers rode the elevator up without him.

In this conversation with Todd Pinkston and Steven Neuner, Rodney — now an executive pastor in Tulsa and a WayForward board member — unpacks how he got unstuck, and why it wasn't a single burning-bush moment. It was a thousand small yeses. He gets honest about the confession that "unlocked an entirely new section of Eden," what his wife actually needed from him during the lean years, and the one-page tool he uses so no one on his team is surprised by a hard conversation.

If success has started to feel hollow, this one's for you.

Michael Manthei walked into the podcast and dropped one of the most unusual real estate stories we've ever heard.

Out of twenty deals, three went south. The investors were sophisticated. They knew the risks. Nobody asked him to do anything. So he sent each of them a letter telling them he and his wife had decided to work toward making them whole, and quoted John 15:13 in the letter. His CPA and lawyer said they'd never seen anyone do it. He didn't expect every investor to accept the offer. Every one did. He's making quarterly payments.

The letter was one moment in a conversation that kept turning where I didn't expect. Michael talked about giving up his mission-field dreams because God told him the most noble life isn't trying to be the Apostle Paul. He talked about hitting financial independence in his early 30s, taking a week off, and realizing God hadn't built him for an easy chair. He talked about why he doesn't say "amen" at the end of his prayers, and why his kids don't either.

Chad Johnson is a father of 11, a business coach, and an absolute trailblazer who leaves a massive ripple effect wherever he goes. To anyone looking at him in his early thirties, he had it all together. But underneath the growing bank account, Chad was stuck in a brutal cycle of self-talk, porn addiction, and believing the enemy’s lies.

In this episode, Chad shares the raw story of the phone call that saved his life on a bridge, and the truth that completely rewired his brain: he has zero power, but he serves the strongest God that exists. Chad breaks down why he hates the word "balance," how his "Giant Five" grid changes how he treats his wife and kids, and why maturity is simply the ability to return to joy quickly after getting punched in the face by life.

John David Blagg is a duck hunter, husband, dad, incredible friend, and a man who lives life deeply connected to the people around him.

John David’s story isn’t marked by a single moment of rock-bottom, but by something just as powerful: a life shaped by relationships, joy, and a growing awareness of God’s presence in the everyday. From his upbringing in Arkansas to a turning point that made his faith real, you’ll hear how connection to family, friends, and ultimately Christ, has guided every step.

Whether it’s building a business, investing in his marriage, or hosting people at FowlCo Outfitters, everything flows from a genuine love for people. His story is a reminder that sometimes getting unstuck isn’t about climbing out of hardship, it’s about leaning into purpose, paying attention to what brings life, and following it with everything you’ve got.

Follow what John David and Falco Outfitters is up to in the links below!

fowlcooutfitters.com

@fowlco_outfitters

Kary Oberbrunner knows that before God uses a person greatly, He often allows them to be wounded deeply. As the CEO of companies dedicated to publishing and protecting intellectual property, Kary helps influencers set free world-changing ideas. However, he’s discovered that the most powerful weapon on earth isn’t an idea—it’s a human soul on fire.

Kary pulls back the curtain on the **unglamorous** side of leadership: the ruthless commitment to an *Opus*, the courage to tell people "no" to protect your calling, and the resilience required when 70% of your company walks out the door. We discuss the "Civil War" that rages when our ideal self clashes with our shadow self, and why the ultimate form of pride is a fixation on one's own worthlessness. If you feel attacked, silenced, or stuck in a season of chronic pain, Kary’s journey from a stuttering child in a learning disability class to a global visionary will recalibrate your perspective on failure and the refining nature of the "mountain" moments in life.

Find more information mentioned in the episode in the links below

ignitingsouls.com/apply

instantip.app

Cedarville University