The Human Adventure

Send Me a Message

#257 - A life can change in a single knock at the door. Author Michaela S. Cox knows that reality firsthand, and her story is equal parts heartbreaking and fiercely practical: born totally blind, navigating life as legally blind, walking through divorce, and then losing her husband suddenly when she was 38 with two young kids at home.

We talk about what “legally blind” actually looks like day to day, from the extra hours it can take to read and test to the constant calculations of light, contrast, and fatigue. Michaela opens up abou...

Send Me a Message

#256 - What happens when the house gets quiet, the kids build their own lives, and you suddenly realize you do not know who you are without your old role? Paula Barnes knows that moment well. After more than 20 years living overseas across Asia, raising three kids in different cultures, and making tough calls like boarding school back in Australia, she hits the empty-nest shift and feels that disorienting drop from being needed every day to wondering what comes next.

We dig into the real mechanics of reinvention after 50: grieving the version...

Send Me a Message

#255 - She’s 15, she’s already flying from Florida to contests around the country, and she’s chasing the kind of dream most people only talk about. Auburn Hilley joins me to share what life really looks like for a teen competitive surfer working her way toward the World Tour, and what it takes to stay steady when the heat clock is running and the waves are not cooperating.

We get into the nuts and bolts of surfing competition for anyone who has ever wondered how heats are scored, what “priority” means, and...

Send Me a Message

#254 - What if the most important stories in your family were the ones nobody could afford to tell at the time? I sit down with author Sara Fashandi to trace her family’s journey from Tehran, Iran to the United States, and the brother at the center of it all, Mohsen, whose memory is so sharp it becomes the family’s unofficial archive. Sara explains what it’s like to grow up with very little, to crave books so much you read scraps of newspaper, and to realize later that your sibling lived a comp...

Send Me a Message

#253 - 537 days. That is how long David Knoff is stuck in Antarctica after signing up for what should have been a 12-month station leader posting at Australia’s Davis Station. What starts as a high-endurance adventure becomes a real-time experiment in isolation, morale, and leadership under uncertainty, with no clean answers and no guaranteed end date.

We trace David’s path from Melbourne to the Army Reserve, peacekeeping, and diplomatic work in conflict zones, then into the Australian Antarctic Program. That background shows up in the moments that matter: how you tell...

Send Me a Message

#252 - A world champion wakeboarder doesn’t just “send it” on command. Logan Vaughan joins me to unpack what winning actually costs, what nobody sees behind the highlights, and how it feels when the sport that built your identity suddenly starts to burn you out.

We talk through the full wake sports world in plain English: the real difference between wakeboarding, wake surfing, and wake skating, why wakeboarding hits harder when you crash, and what it’s like to grow up competing from the time you’re a kid. Logan shares her West T...

Send Me a Message

#251 - What if the biggest thing stopping you from traveling is not fear, money, or time, but the belief that you need permission first? I sit down with Jay Cameron, founder of Maximum Impact Travel, to unpack how a curious kid raised between D.C. and South Carolina became someone who has visited 56 countries, explored 25 African nations, and helped nearly 3,000 people take trips they once thought were out of reach.

Jay shares the real turning points: getting pushed into public speaking as an introverted teenager, realizing in his 40s that “someday” was...

Send Me a Message

#250 - 250 episodes can look like a number on a screen, but it feels more like a trail you’ve walked one conversation at a time. Featuring my friend Colleen Avis as the host, we flip the script and Jake goes to the guest seat to talk about the real origin of The Human Adventure: burnout, the COVID shutdown, and that restless question of “who am I when work changes?” What starts as a practical creative outlet becomes something bigger, a storytelling podcast built on curiosity, empathy, and the belief that people are more than t...

Send Me a Message

#249 - What happens when the thing you’re most tempted to hide becomes the reason other people feel brave? Fashion designer and artist Wildy Martinez joins me for a conversation that moves from New York City childhood memories in Washington Heights and the Bronx to a hard-earned kind of confidence that only comes from being seen. Wildy shares what it was like growing up first-gen Dominican, learning independence early, and using imagination as a way to build a world bigger than her block. 

We talk about her path into fashion, from ske...

Send Me a Message

#248 - What do you do with a loss that never fully leaves you? I sat down with Nicole Jones Vogel, who lost her father to suicide at 25 and has spent the years since turning grief into advocacy, education, and real-world support for others. We go deep on what suicide loss actually feels like over time, why it can carry extra stigma and guilt, and how healing often happens in layers rather than milestones.

Nicole also teaches me something simple that changed the way I speak: many people in suicide prevention avoid “co...

Send Me a Message

#247 - Running away doesn’t heal you, but choosing a new direction might. Taylor Hutcheson (@taywanders) shares the real story behind her full-time travel life, from growing up in North Georgia to becoming a mom at 20 and leaving an abusive, controlling relationship with safety and fear both on the line. We talk candidly about what it takes to rebuild trust in yourself when you’ve been worn down, and why “freedom” is often something you learn by doing. 

From there, adventure becomes more than scenery. Taylor explains how off-roading groups gave her an ou...

Send Me a Message

#247 - He didn’t hop on a skateboard until he was 33 and he still calls himself “awful” at it, which somehow makes what happens next even wilder. Moondog Roop (David, if you ask his mom) joins us to talk about thru-skating: combining long-distance skateboarding with the realities of hiking, carrying the board for hundreds of miles, and committing to the kind of day-after-day grit most people only daydream about.

We get into the real origin story, too. Moondog shares what led to sobriety at 27, the rock-bottom moment that forced him to quit m...

Send Me a Message

$200 for cement. $500 for a business upgrade. A few receipts and a real relationship. That’s the kind of giving that actually lands, and it’s what we dig into with Forrest Mcsweeney, founder of the Uplift Project, a grassroots nonprofit focused on direct microgrants and practical support in rural Guyana.

We talk about Forrest’s unconventional upbringing traveling through Central and South America, the outdoor work that funds his seasons, and the six-month solo road trip that sharpened his sense of what matters. Then we get into the story that crystallized his ph...

Send Me a Message

#244 - One impulsive decision changed Joseph Walker’s entire life: at 19, he joined the U.S. Navy to “see the world” and got sent to Italy. Within a day, he felt something click, not because he knew the language or the history, but because the people, the food, and the everyday energy made him want to ask better questions and stay longer.

We trace the moment that sealed it, when Joseph hired a fisherman near Naples to investigate rumors of something submerged offshore. He dove into cold, murky water and uncovered a Roma...

Send Me a Message

#243 - Waiting for the “right” time to travel can quietly turn into years of missed memories. I sat down with Dustin Tichenor, an Indianapolis dad who works a physically demanding warehouse job, to talk about what actually makes a family adventure meaningful when budgets are tight and life is busy.

We get honest about the pressure many parents carry, especially when you didn’t have the family example you wanted growing up. Dustin shares how that pressure can make you feel like a trip only counts if it’s a big-name destinat...

Send Me a Message

#242 - A “perfect” itinerary can still produce a forgettable trip. What actually makes travel stick is the human stuff: the meal you can’t stop describing, the guide who made you laugh, the neighborhood you wandered without a plan, the courage it took to go even though you felt nervous. I spoke with Eleanor from Elevate Your Escapes, an award-winning travel advisor and blogger who’s been to 70 countries and helps hundreds of clients each year plan vacations, honeymoons, cruises, and once-in-a-lifetime adventures. She is also at Top 30 First Mate (Travel Agent) with Virgin V...

Send Me a Message

#241 - Your life can change in less than two months, and then you’re left staring at the silence. Derrik Dyka knows that shock firsthand. After his wife of 24 years is diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, everything moves fast and then stops. Derikk describes freezing, losing his footing, and realizing that without a normal routine to return to, grief can turn into a kind of paralysis.

Then his twin sons give him an unexpected assignment: “Go be James Bond.” That challenge kicks off a solo travel reset across Asia, starting with T...

Send Me a Message

#240 - What if the life you carefully planned suddenly feels too small? That question sits at the heart of my conversation with Dani Campbell, a former teacher who used the pandemic as a wake-up call. She walked away from the school routine, built a camper van, and spent years learning what solo van life really looks like when it’s not just a highlight reel. We get into the courage it takes to choose freedom, especially when your family is surprised, your future isn’t mapped, and you’re figuring it out in real t...

Send Me a Message

#239 - Joshua Church’s life starts with a shock: his lung collapses right after birth. What follows is years of injuries, surgeries, chronic pain, and a quiet belief that takes root early, “Maybe I’m broken.” When that story hardens, it doesn’t just shape how he moves through sports and school. It shapes what he thinks his future can be.

We talk through the rock bottom moment that forces a change, and the surprisingly simple first step that cracks the door open: an invitation to yoga. From there, Joshua walks us into th...

Send Me a Message

What if the life that scares you is exactly what will set you free? I sit down with Kristy Halvorsen, a former firefighter who traded the predictable path for a solo, off-grid Airstream life driven by intuition, curiosity, and a willingness to not know what’s next. She calls it “coddiwompling,” traveling purposely to unknown destinations while staying open to every possibility, and it turns out to be a philosophy for living, not just a way to roam. 

Kristy shares the turning points that made this leap real: a childhood rupture that qu...

Send Me a Message

#237 - Melody Harman didn’t come to Utah for a postcard life, she came because staying put felt like drowning in reminders. After losing her dad following 70 days in the hospital, and carrying earlier grief from losing her brother as a teen, she hits that brutal stretch where your world looks “normal” on the outside but everything inside is rearranged. So we talk honestly about what it’s like when grief becomes a daily environment, not a single moment, and why a big change can be the first real breath you take.

We s...

Send Me a Message

#236 - The Darien Gap has a legend attached to it, but Daniel Eggington brings the parts that don’t fit the movie version: endless wet days, rivers fought step by step, fear used as a tool, and the mental math of staying alive when you’re deep in the jungle with no easy reset button. Daniel doesn’t chase comfort or bragging rights. He chases places where there’s no blueprint, because that’s where he learns fastest and where the story is earned instead of staged. 

We start with the moment that...

Send Me a Message

#235 - The woods “understood her” before she could understand herself, and Alison Monda’s story makes that feel less like poetry and more like a practical roadmap. She’s a full-time firefighter, a search and rescue volunteer, a musician, a longtime hiker, and someone who finally got an ADHD diagnosis that explained decades of feeling scattered, intense, and constantly in motion. When we sit down to talk, it turns into an honest look at what it means to build a life around adventure while also trying to build a brain that feels steady. 

...

Send Me a Message

#234 - Your childhood dream is supposed to save you, not send you to the burn ward. Dan Schlund is one of the rare people who has flown a real rocket belt, a true rocket motor strapped to your back with about 30 seconds of fuel, superheated thrust, and no room for hesitation. After his third flight off the training cable, a bad landing turns into a nightmare: he gets slammed into the ground, can’t shut the belt off, and is burned in the field until the crew can pull him free. 

We...

Send Me a Message

#233 - He thought he might do a couple years for breaking into fur farms. Instead, a DOJ press release tells him he’s facing animal enterprise terrorism and RICO-related charges with a maximum of 82 years. That’s the moment Peter Young goes from activist to full-time fugitive, living under a fake name, dodging fingerprints, and trying to build a life while the federal government waits for one mistake.

We trace Peter’s path from a middle-class childhood to punk rock politics, veganism, and underground animal rights activism. He explains how early action...

Send Me a Message

#232 - You think you know someone, then you hear what they had to survive. Calvin Bagley looks like the guy with the steady career and the good family, but as a kid he was literally taught to hide when the school bus came by so no one would discover he wasn’t being educated at all.

We talk through Calvin’s childhood in rural Utah with isolation, fear, and extremist beliefs that kept the world at a distance, plus the strange whiplash of showing up to church on Sundays and then retu...

Send Me a Message

#231 - A passport full of stamps can look impressive, but what if the real point of travel is the people who crack you open and change how you see your life? I sat down with Melissa Rodway, author of *The People You Meet*, for an honest, funny, and surprisingly practical conversation about travel, connection, and what happens when we step outside our normal routines.

We talk about the strangers you never forget, including the bold older travelers who prove adventure has no expiration date. Melissa shares why travel can make you...

Send Me a Message

#230 - Ten Ironman distances in ten days sounds like a headline, but JD Tremblay treats it like a case study. JD is a military veteran, ultra-endurance athlete, and founder of Hungry Warrior Academy, and he joins me to explain how he became one of the rare finishers of the Epic Deca across the Hawaiian islands and why the real secret is not heroic motivation. It is structure, repeatable systems, and the decision to follow them when your mind is loud and your body is tired.

We get into the myth that...

Send Me a Message

#229 - He was face down in the ocean, paralyzed, and running out of time. Patrick Yalon went out for a routine surf at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach and never came back the same person and he’s honest about how close he came to not coming back at all.

We talk through the full arc: the low-tide wipeout that breaks his neck, the foggy scramble that ends with his friend finding him blue in the water, and the CPR that brings him back. From there it’s ICU uncertainty, brutal nerve...

Send Me a Message

#228 - Rock bottom isn’t always a single catastrophic night. Sometimes it’s a slow drift: one more drink that becomes normal, one compromise that becomes routine, one secret that feels easier than the truth. Justin Kinney knows that drift firsthand, and he joins me to tell the full story of addiction, sobriety, and rebuilding a life from the ground up.

Justin is a high school strength and conditioning teacher, a coach, a husband, and a dad in a busy blended family. From the outside, he looked like he had everything hand...

Send Me a Message

#227 - What do you do when the person you love is gone before morning and you’re in a country that doesn’t feel fully like home yet? Chanoa Inez lived that question on the coast of Montenegro after her partner died suddenly overnight. The days that followed were filled with shock, language barriers, unfamiliar systems, and an unexpected web of support, and they set her on a seven-year chapter across the Balkans that would change everything about how she understands grief, identity, and resilience. 

We talk about why she chose to st...

Send Me a Message

#226 - You think you want to live abroad until you’re standing in a Shanghai apartment you barely recognize, sleeping on a mattress that feels like concrete, and realizing you can’t read a single sign outside your window. Jeff Lewis did exactly that, on a timeline so fast he had to get a same day passport and a same day visa just to make it happen. What started as a recession driven job scramble became four years of international teaching, culture shock, and the kind of growth you only get when your norm...

Send Me a Message

#225 - A Baptist pastor walks away from a church he planted… and ends up kicking doors with SWAT as an FBI special agent. That’s the real-life career pivot Eric Robinson lived, and his story isn’t just a wild résumé line. It’s a clear look at how pressure, identity, and responsibility can build slowly until you finally admit the truth: you need a different path.

We talk through Eric’s early years in ministry, the surprising toll of carrying other people’s crises, and why the stress of law enforcemen...

Send Me a Message

#224 - Business advice usually starts with scaling, margins, and “hustle.” This conversation starts somewhere more honest: what is business for, and who does it actually serve?

We sit down with Edi Odura, an engineer turned entrepreneur and fractional COO who helps mission-driven founders build systems that don’t burn people out. Edi shares how growing up Ghanaian American shaped her relationship with security and risk, why operations is really about protecting the human side of a company, and what changes when you stop treating process like paperwork and start treating it like l...

Send Me a Message

#223 - What does it take to stay teammates for 30 plus years while crossing borders, missing comforts, and choosing the hard route on purpose? I’m joined by John and Ann Craig Cinnamon, a travel power couple who’ve visited 120 plus countries on seven continents, and they’re honest about the part most people skip: real adventure travel can be exhausting, tense, and unpredictable, and that’s exactly why it changes you.

We dig into the way travel exposes personality fast, from idea-making to logistics to how you handle stress when plans break. J...

Send Me a Message

#222 - When was the last time you let yourself dream without limits, not as a cute idea, but as a serious practice that could change your life? I sit down with Jason VanDevere, an entrepreneur, planner creator, and author of Dream Driven, to talk about what happens when you walk away from the “sure thing” and build a life that actually fits.

Jason grew up in Akron, Ohio in a big family with a cow farm and a car dealership legacy. After college he entered the dealership track with a clear path...

Send Me a Message

#221 - A one-way ticket sounds romantic until you’re standing in a foreign airport, exhausted, hungry, and convinced you’ve made a huge mistake. That’s where Tracy Smith’s story gets real and why it’s so relatable. After a divorce, years of nonstop parenting, and a career grind that left little room to breathe, she finally chooses herself and discovers that freedom can feel like fear at first. 

We talk about what actually led to that first leap to Iceland and how one impulsive booking turned into a multi-country sprint thro...

Send Me a Message

#220 - Behind every great joke is a real story and Danny Johnson’s story explains why his stand-up feels both clean and dangerously close to losing its cool. We talk about how he grew up in a loud Long Island family where roasting was basically a love language, and how that early chase for attention turned into a lifelong craft built on timing, authenticity, and connection. If you’ve ever wondered what makes an audience laugh at the exact same moment, Danny breaks it down in plain terms. 

We get nerdy about...

Send Me a Message

#219 - A million-dollar decision can look a lot like a random pop-up ad and a quick, messy “why not?” Alex Boylan went from being a preacher’s kid on the North Shore of Boston to winning Season 2 of The Amazing Race, and that victory didn’t just change his bank account, it rewired his definition of work, purpose, and adventure. We talk through the early travel experiences that shaped him, the real dynamics of racing with his best friend Chris, and the pressure-cooker moments where relationships, strategy, and grit matter more than perfect plans. <...

Send Me a Message

#218 - At 92, Jim Paulk doesn’t sound like someone looking back. He sounds like someone still chasing the next idea, the next project, the next person worth learning from. Our conversation starts with a dream delayed, how a kid from Brunswick, Georgia missed his Naval Academy appointment, kept pushing, then got the call that changed everything. From day one at Annapolis, Jim learns what many of us learn the hard way: you don’t need a perfect plan, you need the willingness to keep choosing forward.

We follow Jim through a life...