The He's Just Podcasts

Farmer Wayne Swanson Jr. is the owner and operator of Swanson Family Farm, LLC and began the agricultural business in 2008. His interest in farming began as a young child witnessing his grandparent’s work on their farm in New Jersey. He would later gain the experience to run and operate a successful farm. Mr. Swanson graduated from Morris Brown College with a bachelor’s degree in Mass Media Arts in 1995. He is a proud member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. In addition, Farmer Wayne is a co-founder of the Georgia Black-Owned Farms Tour – a tour of Black-owned Georgia-based farms and farm-to-table bistros.The Georgia Black-Owned Farms Tour celebrates ownership, and selling, preparing, and eating organic animal and vegetable produce from the land.The land tells a different story when it’s passed down instead of taken away. For Wayne Swanson Jr., farming is not a trend, it is memory, inheritance, and resistance. From watching his grandparents work the soil in New Jersey to building Swanson Family Farm, LLC from the ground up in 2008, his journey is stitched together with sacrifice, mistakes, hard-earned wisdom, and an unshakable belief that Black farmers deserve not just survival, but ownership, healing, and prosperity. This is a story about mental health under pressure, investing when the odds are stacked against you, its conversations for the future generations that cannot afford to be disconnected from the soil again.

Patricia Martin is a cultural analyst, researcher, and speaker. Her work has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, The New York Times, Slate and Psyche Magazine. Author of four books, she holds an MFA in nonfiction from Bennington College, with post-graduate certifications from Duke University in medical narrative, and Jungian theory at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago where she teaches writing and hosts the psychology podcast, Jung in the World. Today, we’re talking with Patricia about her most recent book, Will the Future Like You?: Reflections on the Age of Hyper-reinvention.It’s a much-needed work that explores how we consciously and unconsciously get caught in technology’s mirror, and how that reflection shapes everything from our sense of self to the external pressures of society. This conversation invites us to pause, and question who we are becoming? Which will help us consider what it really means to remain human in a digitally driven future.”

CARLA KAPLAN is the Davis Distinguished Professor of American Literature at Northeastern University. She has published seven books, including Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance and Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters, both New York Times Notable Books, and has written for such publications as The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Slate, and The Nation. Kaplan has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others. She serves on the board of Biographers International Organization and is a Society of American Historians Fellow. Kaplan earned her PhD in English from Northwestern University.And today, as we pull the curtain on this season finale of The He’s Just Podcast, we sit down with Carla to talk about her newest firestarter, TroubleMaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford, a biography that doesn’t just turn pages, it turns tables.

USA National Bestselling Author Darius Ross shares his lived experiences and hard-earned insights with audiences around the world. His bestselling book, The TPS Blueprint: Transforming Trauma to Triumph, has become a powerful resource for readers seeking a fresh start from within. He is also the co-author of Leadership DNA and Success DNA, two works that spotlight character, clarity, and purpose in leadership. Beyond authorship, Darius is a Forbes contributor, public speaker, and a frequent guest on global podcasts and events. Whether addressing Fortune 500 executives or mentoring emerging entrepreneurs, his message is rooted in strategy, healing, and legacy. He helps individuals reframe trauma, rebuild confidence, and achieve financial empowerment. Today, Darius stands as a bridge between adversity and opportunity, championing hope, achievement, and the power of aligning mission with action.

Anne Hand is a writer and global education expert whose work bridges personal history and social change. Born in New York she has divided her time between Massachusetts and Mexico City, exploring what it means to belong across borders. Her debut memoir, Austrian Again, traces her journey through Austria’s citizenship process for descendants of Holocaust refugees and the unexpected rediscovery of her family’s hidden past. With empathy and curiosity, Anne reflects on identity, memory, and the legacies we inherit. A graduate of Harvard University, she has devoted her career to advancing equity and opportunity through education and technology around the world. Today we take a deeper, more intimate look at her book “Austrian Again”,Reclaiming a Lost Legacy” is a homecoming, a joyful tribute to the power of belonging. This book is a much-needed reminder for all us who are immigrants, for those of us who seek to know the truth, a truth that sometimes changes our own theories, in that, truly is no place like home.

MASON DONOVAN and MARK KAPLAN are Managing Partners of The Dagoba Group, a global consulting firm advancing inclusive leadership, employee well-being, and organizational culture. They are also the authors of The Inclusion Dividend, a perennial best-seller leveraged in corporate and academic classrooms worldwide, as well as SET for Inclusion and The Golden Apple. Their work has been featured by Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fast Company. Mason and Mark working parents themselves, bring decades of expertise in employee engagement, wellness, and workplace inclusion. As thought-leaders and advisors to Fortune 1000 companies, they’ve helped organizations reframe talent development for a modern workforce—one that recognizes the lived experience of parenthood as a professional asset, not a detour. Today we talked about their new book The Parenthood Advantage: Building Corporate Cultures That Value Working Parents.Today we walk with Mark and Mason in conversation, exploring how organizations can reimagine the workplace to recognize working parents as assets- and as stronger leaders shaped by the profound experience of parenthood.

Jae Tracy is an artist, business owner, and trauma educator. She spent over a decade working in creative and survivor- centered spaces running a mural company, and working as a certified PADI Divemaster, and creating media that helps kids understand boundaries. She's volunteered with Special Olympics in Hawaii, Oregon, and Virginia, and served in mutual aid and outreach programs including Food Not Bombs, Union Gospel Mission, and Love in Action Hawaii, and Home Aid Hawaii. Today, she leads Boundary Bandits: No Excuse For Abuse, a creative education project teaching kids how to identify harm, build emotional safety, and grow up clear, confident, and protected. The question is will we notice in time? This is Boundary Bandits.