Goodpain Podcast

We have a couple more interviews coming for Season 2, but this week we take another break to bring a voice of wisdom to our audience. This week it is the man that always welcomed us into his Neighborhood, never failing to invite us to be his neighbor simply because us to know we were worth knowing. In this recording from 2001, we hear Fred Rogers' commencement address to the graduating class of Marquette University.

This week we sit down for a discussion with Robyn D. Walser, PhD. Robyn is a clinical psychologist, author, and internationally recognized trainer in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), often described as a clinician's clinician for her deep emphasis on therapeutic presence and connection. She is the author and coauthor of several influential ACT books, including The Heart of ACT, where she invites therapists to move beyond technique into a more heartfelt, process-based, and relational way of working — treating therapy as a shared human experience rather than a set of tools. Her work highlights how psychological flexibility is cultivated not just through cognitive shifts, but through courage, compassion, and an open-hearted stance with clients. In recent years, Robyn has been reflecting on questions of feminism, masculinity, and the impacts of cultural narratives on our sense of self, intimacy, and vulnerability, especially in the context of trauma and moral injury. She invites a more nuanced, inclusive conversation about gender—one that honors pain without vilifying whole groups, and that makes space for men and women alike to live with greater authenticity, responsibility, and heart. https://robynwalser.com/

We will return next week with more long form conversations, however, this week we continue borrowing from another voice to explore the notion of sacred inconvenience, or staying present and aware to living right now. This week we borrow the 2005 commencement address delivered to Kenyon College. The author and speaker is the late author David Foster Wallace, and the address is titled, "This is Water." To watch a creative version of the speech, please visit the following link: This is Water, by David Foster Wallace [https://youtu.be/eC7xzavzEKY?si=gohh_2brwMuMDA06]

This week we sit down with Chef Jay Anthony Irizzary of Cabo Rojo Cocina Caribeña [https://www.caborojococina.com/], a Puerto Rican-inspired culinary brand based in Reno, NV, offering bold, authentic Latin Caribbean food and desserts. I met Jay while I was in Reno and found his restaurant my first night there. My waiter took my order, delivered my drink and my food. He was also the owner. And the chef. We swapped brief stories as Jay hustled around the restaurant that night and extending our conversation produced this week's episode. The flavor and soul is clear in Jay's food and reflects his desire to create home. The food was awesome, and it was clear Jay was puring his heart into the restaurant and risking much to create a unique experience. I went back the second night.

We're back! After a nearly two-month hiatus, we have a number of interviews and discussions ready as we run out the remainder of this season. In this return episode Jeremy and Tyler consider the statement "A mature man doesn't need to prove his strength; he creates safety for others to discover theirs." Multiple questions are explored in this conversation, and relies on some current conversations to inform it including the recent Netfflix released documentary, Louis Theroux's Inside the Manosphere alongside the literary classic, Lord of the Flies. Questions Explored: * "What does it mean to be strong enough to be gentle without being weak?" * "How do you know when your actions come from mature power versus the need to prove something?" * "What would change in your relationships if you stopped trying to fix or save people and started trusting them to find their own way?" * "When you think of the legacy you want to leave, what qualities matter more than achievements?"

We return to the topic of grief as our starting point and shared story, however, this discussion goes beyond that. In it we sit down with Bill O'Melia, who was thrust into role as an advocate following the passing of his son, Drennan in 2010. Bil and his wife, Melissa, with their two surviving sons were upheld by a sudden community that rose up around them. And a couple years later, Bill found himself using his family's story on stage. This year, Bill & Melissa came to the decision with their board to suspend operations for Drennen's Dreams Foundation [https://www.drennensdreams.org/]. We discuss the journey toward that decision here and the emotions and experience that came along with it. Bill is also involved in supporting the Families United to Prevent Drowning [https://www.familiesunitedtopreventdrowning.org/] organization, a union of families focused on "No more drowning."

"Whether you are rich or whether you are poor, life delivers challenges to you" and despite these challenges, our guest Deremiah points out how much embracing our choice and autonomy regardless of the circumstances defines how we live. We do not get to choose our challenges. Learning how to listen to ourselves, to listen to each other, and rise to the challenge, helps us differentiate between living fully or embracing an impoverished existence. Deremiah is a contributing author to the Amazon bestseller, Yes, I Can and I Did! [https://a.co/d/3QJ54eM]. In addition to being an author, Deremiah's interests and focus has spanned art, business coaching, athletics, music, and many others. Links to his work can be found below. Arizona Galleries [https://arizonagalleries.com/] Podcast Booking [https://talks.co/deremiahcpe] Original Music: Stand for Peace [https://www.amazon.com/music/player/albums/B07GJ97WNP?ie=UTF8]

Today we sit down with our friend Kyle Quincey, former defenseman in the NHL and Owner of Do Good Ranch [https://www.dogoodranch.com/]. Kyle shares his story coming up playing hockey in Canada through the end of his storied career in the NHL. Kyle describes how the professional system reinforces the belief tha "You're never good enough" and how that takes a toll as a professional, a provider, and an individual. While Kyle's story anchors to a career at the upper echelons of professional sports, the themes and lessons he discusses are present in every venue and have been shared by every man. Do Good Ranch [https://www.dogoodranch.com/]'s mission is to provide a supportive space for personal growth and self-improvement through transformative retreat experiences. By reconnecting with nature and incorporating a variety of technologies, wellness modalities, and the wisdom of educated facilitators and elders, participants are empowered to enhance their mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well-being.

We've explored how community begins with an inner capacity for connectedness, and how that capacity must be large enough to hold intensity without flinching. But this raises a new question: if community isn't manufactured through desire or design, what actually sustains it? What keeps the connections alive across time and distance, through seasons of plenty and seasons of scarcity? The answer lies in a pattern of exchange as old as human culture itself – one that looks nothing like the transactions that dominate modern life. To understand how communities sustain themselves without exhausting their members, we need to explore what happens when giving creates relationship rather than debt, when circulation generates abundance rather than scarcity. We need to understand the gift.

This week Tiffany and Tyler sit down with the author of Hold My Hand, Mama, A touching story that walks readers through the circle of life from a daughter's first steps to her mother's last and beyond. Gabrielle was the recipient of the Mom's Choice Awards® Gold and shares her story with Goodpain and what brought her to write Hold My Hand, Mama. Author's Links: Hold My Hand, Mama Website [https://www.holdmyhandmama.com/] Amazon: Order Hold My Hand, Mama [https://a.co/d/6GZ71Nm]

We've reduced civic duty to voting, but community emerges from deliberate cultivation of beliefs, attitudes, and rituals practiced between solitude and collective life. Community isn't manufactured through programs or proximity. It emerges when we practice civic arts we've abandoned: endurance, gratitude, and fierce presence.

In this final installment of the Apprenticeship Model for Leadership series, we talk about Generational Maintenance, synthesizing all domains for lifelong practice within a framework of intellectual humility and twenty-year thinking. We also introduce the model for our next series, the Northern Arapaho's Four Hills of Life Movement. In this context we use the model to express some diuscssion about leadership and preview our next series about Community and what it means to live together.

Season 1 of Goodpain has wrapped and we thank everyone who came along with us. We are in production on Season 2 and introduce the topic in this episode. Goodpain will return with Season 2 toward the end of October, early November in 2025. See you then!