📋 Episode Summary

In this episode, Emily and Marc continue their Season 4 exploration of transitions with the word "bridge." The conversation begins with Marc reflecting on his faith journey, modern history, and the book "Jesus and John Wayne" — and how looking back can reveal the structures and systems that shaped parts of his identity.

Emily brings the metaphor to physical bridges: covered bridges in Maine, swimming holes, the bridge between New Hampshire and Maine, singing bridges, long Louisiana bridges, and bridges in music. Together, they notice how a bridge can be both structure and process — something built, something crossed, and something that changes depending on whether you are standing on it or looking at it.

The episode closes in a tender place, as Emily names the bridge of grief: Marc's mother's birthday, the first year after Emily's brother's death, and the first year after Marc's father's death. Some bridges end. Some keep unfolding. And some remind us that transition is not always one clean crossing.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• A bridge can be both a fixed structure and a process — a thing you stand on and a way you move from one place to another.

• Looking back can help us see the hidden engineering beneath what shaped us.

• Not all bridges feel the same. Some are beautiful, some are scary, some sing, and some make us aware of what is underneath us.

• Naming a bridge can change the experience of crossing it.

• Emily and Marc notice that they often approach the same metaphor differently: Marc imagines being on the bridge, while Emily imagines looking at it.

• Some transitions feel like reaching the end of a bridge and stepping back onto the dirt road.

• Grief has its own bridges, especially the first year of birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries after a death.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"We can all stand on something and think we're just standing on something." – Emily

"Different angles, and different suspensions, and different ways that things come together, can support something." – Emily

"Bridge, to me, seems like it's both. It is a fixed structure… but there's a process of walking through it." – Marc

"Sometimes a bridge in music is kind of stepping out of the song to reflect, and then to come back into the song." – Emily

"It's like walking off the bridge and, oh, this is the dirt road again." – Marc

"There's something about coming to the end of the first year of mourning." – Emily

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

• A Bug's Life

• Music and Lyrics

• Three Amigos

• My Cousin Vinny

👥 Who Should Listen

• People reflecting on faith, identity, and the systems that shaped them

• Anyone navigating a transition that feels more like a bridge than a doorway

• Listeners who love metaphors, memory, and the way ordinary places carry meaning

• People moving through grief, especially the first year after a significant loss

• Couples who enjoy hearing how two people can see the same image in very different ways

🎺 That Music!

Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music.
Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar
Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet
Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary

As the season on transitions continues, Emily and Marc reflect on graduations, hospice, politics, wars, uncertainty, and the possibility that transition may not always end neatly. Sometimes the work is not to find a period at the end of the sentence, but to stay flexible, creative, rooted, and open to being repotted into a larger space.

In this episode, Emily and Marc celebrate a quiet milestone: Still Figuring It Out has passed 1,000 downloads. That number becomes a concrete reminder that even a messy, joy-filled project can create connection, community, and meaning beyond what the hosts can see.

The word of the day is "convergence," and the conversation moves through definitions, podcasting, friendship, community, personal boards of directors, weather as ancient human small talk, college as a pressure cooker, and the ways relationships sometimes come together — or don't — at the depth Marc hopes for.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• The podcast began as a place for joy, and reaching 1,000 downloads gives Emily and Marc a tangible reminder that people are listening.

• "Convergence" can mean union, a meeting place, or the coordinated focusing of the eyes — two things coming together so something can be seen more clearly.

• Different relationships have different levels of depth, and not every connection is meant to become a soul-nourishing convergence.

• Small talk, like talking about the weather, may carry deep ancestral memory from when weather was a matter of survival.

• Some seasons of transition may not close cleanly. They may overlap with graduations, grief, politics, family changes, and world events.

• Naming transitions can help with balance, but it does not give us control over all the circumstances.

• Still figuring it out means staying flexible, creative, and willing to keep growing.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"I still feel like our primary goal is to have fun together." – Emily

"It gives us joy." – Marc

"Convergence can be a meeting place." – Emily

"To me, it's the coming together of two things to see something clearly." – Emily

"I think I expect everything to 'be' convergence instead of enjoying convergence." – Marc

"We're holding a lot that we will go through whether we're ready or not." – Emily

"We're getting repotted into more nourishing soil and a bigger space to grow." – Marc

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• WordHippo https://wordhippo.com/

• Personal board of directors

👥 Who Should Listen

• People who are building something slowly and wondering whether it matters

• Listeners who are navigating overlapping family, work, grief, and life transitions

• Couples reflecting on shared creative projects and what gives them joy

• People who crave deep community but are learning to honor lighter forms of connection too

• Anyone wondering whether transition ever really reaches a clean ending

🎺 That Music!

Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music.
Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar
Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet
Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary

In this episode, Emily and Marc talk with Matt Ray, a spirits educator, storyteller, Safe Bar Network trainer, and newly named World's Best American Whiskey Brand Ambassador. Matt brings stories from New Orleans, hospitality, teaching, bartending, alchemy, bourbon, mythology, and the occasional tiny bottle of Underberg.

The conversation moves from Mardi Gras marching crews and surprise neighborhood parades to the deeper work of making bars safer, helping people know when it's time to leave a job, and using influence to strengthen community. Matt talks about the joy of work, the cost of staying where you no longer belong, and the responsibility of helping hospitality workers feel seen and supported.

It's playful, thoughtful, and full of good lines — a conversation about learning, relearning, community, delight, and the lifelong mission of turning lead into gold.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Hospitality can hold both firmness and generosity. Safe spaces are not created by confrontation alone, but through de-escalation, clarity, and care.

• Sometimes loving your work means knowing when it is no longer good for you — or for the people you serve.

• A good leader can care deeply about keeping someone and still tell them the truth when it may be time to go.

• Joy matters. Life is too short to stay indefinitely in work that drains your health, relationships, and sense of self.

• Community-building can be part of professional excellence, not something separate from it.

• Learning is never finished. Forgetting can even become an invitation to rediscover a good story again.

• Turning "lead into gold" becomes a metaphor for becoming more fully ourselves.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"I got to New Orleans as soon as I could." – Matt

"Not everyone is the monster that they sometimes come across as." – Matt

"Love does stuff. Love does not wait." – Matt

"Sometimes, just the looking is part of who you become." – Matt

"Life is too short to be unhappy." – Matt

"I feel like so many people hide from their own greatness." – Emily

"To turn lead into gold is always the mission." – Matt

"I'm both terrified at the amount of work left to do, and also excited by it." – Matt

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• U.S. Bartenders Guild https://usbg.org/

• Sazerac Company https://www.sazerac.com

• Wine & Spirit Education Trust https://www.wsetglobal.com

• Safe Bar Network https://www.safebarnetwork.org

• Turning Tables https://www.turningtablesnola.org

• Bruce Springsteen's autobiography

👥 Who Should Listen

• Hospitality workers, bartenders, and leaders who care about creating safer spaces

• Coaches and managers helping people discern whether to stay, change, or leave

• People who love New Orleans, cocktails, whiskey, Mardi Gras, and good storytelling

• Anyone who has wondered whether joy is a legitimate guide in work and life

• Leaders who want to use their influence to strengthen community

• Lifelong learners who are still figuring out how to turn lead into gold

🎺 That Music!

Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music.
Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar
Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet
Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary

In this episode, Emily and Marc explore the word "evolution" as part of Season 4's ongoing conversation about transitions. What begins with science, faith, and Madeline L'Engle turns into a much more personal reflection on marriage, parenting adult children, changing relationships, and learning to give ourselves and others room to grow.

Marc reflects on how hard it can be to believe in someone else's evolution when past hurt or disappointment is involved. Emily brings a coach's curiosity to the difference between expecting others to change and noticing how we ourselves are changing.

Together, they wonder about goals, perfectionism, strategic plans, walking habits, values, community, and the mystery of becoming. By the end, evolution feels less like a straight line and more like navigation: active, intentional, responsive, and open to the possibility that the island may be coming to us.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Evolution can be a grace-filled word because it leaves room for change, growth, and becoming.

• Relationships require curiosity. The people we love are not frozen versions of who they used to be.

• Not every relationship can hold the same amount of spaciousness, and not everyone wants the same kind of community.

• "What goals" and "who goals" can work together: daily practices shape the kind of person we are becoming.

• Evolution may include steps forward, steps back, repair, brokenness, and slow unnoticed change.

• Strategic plans and life plans rarely unfold like GPS directions. Values may function more like the keel of a ship.

• Becoming is not passive, but it may still involve receiving what comes toward us.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"Evolution is a wonder word." – Emily

"To me, the word is a grace-filled word, because it allows for change, allows for growth." – Marc

"If I can shoot for a little bit better, a little bit more, a little bit truer, then I have the courage and the capacity in my heart and the hope to move forward." – Emily

"My role is to set a good table, but I can't make them eat the meal." – Marc

"The what goals and the who goals, I think, work in tandem to evolve each other." – Emily

"I don't want to be so focused that I lose a peripheral vision for, this is so much better than I could have asked or imagined." – Marc

"Māori don't say they're going to the island. They say the island's coming to them." – Marc

"I wonder if our becoming comes to us." – Marc

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• Madeline L'Engle

• GPS as a planning metaphor

• Scrum

• Māori sea voyages and celestial navigation

👥 Who Should Listen

• People navigating personal or relational transitions

• Parents of adult children learning how to relate differently

• Couples reflecting on how marriage changes over time

• Coaches and leaders interested in values-based growth

• Business owners or nonprofit leaders rethinking rigid strategic plans

• Anyone trying to give themselves more grace as they change

🎺 That Music!

Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music.
Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar
Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet
Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary

In this episode, Emily and Marc talk with Toya Moore — coach, community advocate, yoga teacher, ICF South Carolina president, mom, and someone very intentionally reimagining this phase of her life.

The conversation moves through rest, parenting adult children, play, community-building, coaching, strengths, and what happens when life strips away some of the things we thought defined us. Toya shares how a serious car accident shifted her understanding of identity, resources, rest, and groundedness.

It's a warm, funny, vulnerable conversation about being in transition without rushing to solve it — about learning to pour into yourself, plant both feet on the ground, and be okay not knowing what tomorrow looks like.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Rest is not the opposite of growth. For Toya, rest is part of preparing for a thoughtful pivot.

• Parenting adult children may require reimagining old patterns rather than simply repeating how we were parented.

• Intentional boundaries — like Do Not Disturb, no late-night calls, and a Sabbath rhythm — can become a practical form of self-care.

• Play does not always have to be elaborate. Sometimes whimsy looks like singing Hall & Oates in the grocery store or reading yourself a bedtime story.

• Strengths can be overused. VIA Strengths gives Toya a way to help people understand what serves them, what needs practice, and what may get in the way.

• Losing "the things" — a car, money, furniture, status, titles, or ease — can reveal deeper questions about character and identity.

• A pivot is not only the action of turning. Sometimes it is the grounded point that makes the turn possible.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"I am planted at the intersection of rest and pivoting." – Toya

"I don't need to do all those new things. I need to finish the things that I have been working on for years and years and years." – Toya

"I had my likeness put into a book… I read myself a bedtime story." – Toya

"The hat rack at your house has so many hooks for all the different hats you wear." – Marc

"Who are you without all the things?" – Toya

"The pivot is that I've got my front foot rooted, or my back foot rooted, or my core engaged. That's where the action comes from." – Emily

"I want to normalize being in a space of uncertainty and not knowing which way I'm going and being okay with it." – Toya

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• International Coaching Federation of South Carolina https://icfsc.org/

• VIA Strengths / Values in Action

• Life University positive psychology program

• Veterans Yoga Project

👥 Who Should Listen

• Parents learning how to relate to their adult children in a new way

• Coaches, facilitators, and community leaders navigating a season of transition

• People who are tired of burning the candle at both ends and want rest to become more intentional

• Anyone asking who they are apart from roles, titles, status, money, or possessions

• Leaders who care about strengths-based work, somatics, mindfulness, and community-building

🎺 That Music!

Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music.
Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar
Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet
Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary

In this episode, Emily and Marc continue their season on transitions by exploring the word "passage." What begins with train tickets, hallways, and magical doorways becomes a deeper conversation about the passages that mark a life: marriage, graduation, parenthood, moving, grief, aging parents, and adult children launching into their own lives.

They notice how often major transitions do not feel like dramatic reveals. Sometimes, after the wedding, the degree, the move, or the milestone, the honest feeling is simply, "still me." And yet, looking back, those passages have changed them, shaped them, and left markers along the way.

The conversation becomes an invitation to pay attention to the hallway, not just the room we came from or the one we are entering. What are the "piles of rocks" worth remembering? What are the moments of no going back? And what might we notice if we stop rushing through the passage?

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Passage is not the same as being a passenger. It can be an active, meaningful space between one place and another.

• Many major life transitions do not come with a dramatic reveal. Sometimes the marker happens, and we still feel like ourselves.

• Looking back helps us see how much we have changed, even when the change was gradual or hard to notice at the time.

• Rituals, ceremonies, bridges, graduations, and other symbolic markers help us name the "no going back" moments in life.

• Some passages are chosen, and some arrive through grief, aging, parenting, loss, or family change.

• Noticing the details of the passage — the hallway, the baseboards, the exposed wires, the "pile of rocks" — can make transition feel more meaningful and less accidental.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"I think of the passageway into magical worlds. Narnia, hedges, doorways, something that is a passage into another place." – Emily

"It's the purposeful space in between. It connects two places." – Marc

"I wonder if we do that with some of the transitions in our life — where we're coming from and where we're going to occupy our mind." – Marc

"The passage of marriage, of doing life together, is continual. That's a really long doorway." – Emily

"Maybe it could be reassuring that there's not a big makeover or a big reveal." – Marc

"Reveals are staged. Reveals are really edited." – Emily

"I like your noticing that no-going-backness." – Emily

"I think a danger would be to just let things happen instead of observing them or acknowledging them." – Marc

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• Sprouts, Emily's weekly newsletter https://ejpitman.com/about-sprouts/
• The Northwest Passage
• "Time Passages" by Al Stewart
• Passage to India
• Narnia
• "Sunrise, Sunset"
• St. John of the Cross and the Dark Night of the Soul
• Brownies and Girl Scouts bridging ceremonies
• Driver's Ed walk-around checklists
• Hebrew Scripture practice of marking memory with piles of rocks

👥 Who Should Listen

• People in a season of transition who expected it to feel more dramatic or obvious than it does.

• Parents adjusting to adult children launching into their own lives.

• Couples reflecting on marriage as a long, ongoing passage rather than a single moment.

• Anyone navigating grief, aging parents, end-of-life passages, or family change.

• Listeners who appreciate reflective conversations about rituals, memory, and the meaning hidden in ordinary transitions.

🎺 That Music!
Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music.
Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar
Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet
Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary

In this episode of Still Figuring It Out, Marc and Emily continue their season-long conversation about transitions by exploring the word "metamorphosis." Even though the butterfly image can feel overused, Emily names what she still loves about it: the wonder of living in a universe where what you see is not always what you get.

The conversation moves from HGTV reveal scenes and The Princess Diaries to leadership transformation, midwifery, faith, parenting, marriage, conflict, and the long waiting seasons that make change possible. Marc reflects on the kind of transformation where there is no desire to go back, while Emily reminds us that metamorphosis often looks like waiting, watching, stretching, conflict, and becoming.

Together, they sit with the messiness of change: the cocoon, the not-yet, the impatience, the anger, the grace to let others become, and the hope of being ready to "catch and witness" what emerges.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Metamorphosis may be an overused image, but it still holds real wonder: the possibility that what we see now is not the whole story.

• Transformation is rarely instant. It can involve long seasons of waiting, watching, and not knowing what is forming underneath the surface.

• Conflict can be part of becoming. Whether in childhood, young adulthood, marriage, faith, or leadership, tension often reveals that something new is trying to emerge.

• Marc connects metamorphosis to leadership transformation: helping people reach a place so fully their own that going back no longer feels possible or desirable.

• Emily names impatience and anger not as weaknesses to erase, but as part of "the color of the picture."

• One act of grace is choosing to believe that someone's change may be metamorphosis, not avoidance, flippancy, or failure to do the work.

• The process may not be beautiful, but the results can be worth it.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"Being in a universe where what you see isn't necessarily what you get." – Emily

"All of us want a reveal moment." – Emily

"The reveal is that you're the princess on your terms." – Emily

"We love helping leaders see that what might look like the end might really be a glorious beginning." – Marc

"A transformation so complete, there's no danger of going back. There's no desire to go back." – Marc

"Metamorphosis isn't a today, tomorrow." – Emily

"It's deciding to stay walking until we figure out how this new pace is going to be." – Emily

"I want to give grace for people to change and to be other." – Marc

"I want to be ready to catch and witness." – Emily

"The process isn't beautiful. But the results are really worth it." – Marc

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• HGTV reveal scenes
• The Princess Diaries
• Concord Leadership Group manifesto https://concordleadershipgroup.com/manifesto
• Quadrant 3 Leadership
• Midwifery as a metaphor for helping transformation emerge
• St. John of the Cross and the dark night of the soul
• Indigenous cultures, seasons, and life cycles
• Hallmark movies
• Monstera plants

👥 Who Should Listen

• People who are in a long transition and frustrated that change is taking longer than expected.

• Leaders, coaches, and helpers who walk with others through transformation.

• Parents watching children, teens, or adult children become more fully themselves.

• Couples who are learning how conflict can become part of deeper togetherness.

• Listeners who resonate with faith, doubt, curiosity, and the messiness of personal growth.

• Anyone who needs permission to trust that something may be forming even when it only looks like waiting.

🎺 That Music!
Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music.
Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar
Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet
Zoe Czarnecki – bass