Discover the inspiring story of resilience and rebirth in our latest episode featuring Ron Klopfenstein, an adjunct professor at Utica University and host of Hot Seat Media Monday. After suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome for over a decade, Ron shares how he transformed his life from debilitating illness to impactful educator and community activist.

Ron’s journey is not just about overcoming a health crisis; it’s a testament to the power of choice in the face of adversity. He candidly discusses the struggles that come with chronic fatigue syndrome, including the physical and emotional toll it takes. You’ll hear about the innovative treatments that finally helped him reclaim his life, including the surprising role that colloidal silver played in his recovery.

In this episode, you'll discover:

- The lesser-known symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome and its elusive causes.

- The unconventional treatment paths that led to Ron's recovery.

- How his experiences shaped his teaching philosophy and approach to life.

- Insights into the importance of choosing gratitude over bitterness after loss.

- The ways in which chronic illness can redefine one’s purpose and passion.

Ron’s story is a powerful reminder that even in our darkest moments, there is always a path forward. He emphasizes the importance of resilience, the strength found in vulnerability, and the impact of maintaining a positive outlook.

Whether you’re facing your own challenges or simply seeking inspiration, this episode is essential listening. Ron’s journey will leave you motivated to confront your own obstacles with courage and determination. Tune in and be inspired to live with intention and purpose

Ron’s Bio and Contact Information

Ron Klopfenstein is an adjunct professor at Utica University and has taught in the Utica New York school system for several years. He is also involved in various social causes in the Utica area, with his husband Jim Hale. Ron is also the host of Hot Seat Media Monday, a live podcast which highlights individuals and organizations who are having a positive impact in the Utica, New York community.

Ron’s Contact information

All Social Media: Ron Klopfenstein

Podcast: Hot Seat Media Monday

uticapheonix.net/media-monday , 95.5 FM The Heat, Mondays from 5–6 p.m, and on all major podcast platforms

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What if the behaviors that make you great at helping others are also the ones that keep you stuck, burned out, and disconnected from yourself?

Trauma expert and award-winning professor Dr. Adam McCormick joins host Dave Roberts for a deeply practical conversation about adverse childhood experiences, emotional survival, and why so many helping professionals are drawn to this work long before they ever realize it.

Adam shares how growing up with an alcoholic father and becoming a parentified child shaped his path into social work, and why so many adults recreate familiar pain in relationships, work, and self-sabotage without meaning to. He breaks down the difference between ACEs and trauma, why trauma is the wound rather than the event, and how shame, control, and survival adaptations like fight, flight, freeze, overfunctioning, and people-pleasing follow us into adulthood.

You’ll discover:

• Why emotional and relational trauma often shapes professionals more than overt abuse
• How childhood survival skills get rewarded in social work, teaching, and other helping roles
• Why “just do self-care” fails when someone has disconnected from their authentic self to survive
• How countertransference can reveal unresolved childhood material in the room
• Why connection, co-regulation, and being truly seen matter more than perfect advice

Adam offers a powerful framework for understanding how meaning gets made, how trauma spreads when it goes unrecognized, and how healing begins when someone finally stays present without judgment.

This conversation is essential listening for anyone who works with trauma, supports young people, or is trying to break generational cycles in their own life.

About Adam

Adam McCormick, MSSW, PhD, is an award-winning professor, social worker, keynote speaker, and author whose work explores trauma, burnout, emotional development, helping professionals, foster care, resilience, masculinity, and the emotional lives of boys and men.

Over the course of his career, Adam has delivered nearly 300 keynote presentations, workshops, conference sessions, continuing education trainings, and professional development programs for social workers, counselors, healthcare professionals, educators, universities, and helping organizations across the United States.

In 2026, Adam received the Minnie Stevens Piper Professor Award, widely regarded as the highest honor for teaching excellence in the state of Texas. He is also a candidate for the 2028 Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching, one of the most prestigious teaching awards in higher education in the United States, and was the recipient of St. Edward's University's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2025.

Adam is the author of Healing the Helping Professional: The Unfinished Business of Childhood (NASW Press, 2026), a book exploring childhood trauma, emotional survival adaptations, burnout, authenticity, and the journey back to the self. He is also currently completing The Cost of Becoming a Boy: Trauma, Boyhood, and a Return to Self, a forthcoming book examining the emotional, developmental, and cultural experiences that shape boys and men. Dr. McCormick is the author of LGBTQ+ Youth in Foster Care (Routledge).

Known for blending trauma science, storytelling, vulnerability, humor, and practical application, Adam's presentations help audiences better understand both the people they serve and themselves.

Connect with Adam McCormick:

Follow Adam on LinkedIn for his social links and weekly trauma-focused newsletter.

His book is available through Amazon and NASW Press.

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Some paintings are beautiful. Mary Marquiss makes paintings that answer back. In this conversation, the Oregon artist and author of Behind the Painting reveals how grief, synchronicity, travel, and 30 years of watercolor work turned her art into a mirror for the most life-changing moments of her story.

Mary and host Dave Roberts trace the deeply personal paintings in her memoir, including the poppy that became a symbol of unexpected strength, the bird that felt like her sister Betty's spirit, and a cave in Scotland that opened into a moment of profound release. What begins as an art conversation becomes something much larger: a meditation on how creativity helps us survive loss, recognize meaning, and keep moving through the dark toward the light.

You'll discover:

• How Mary's psychology background shaped the way she sees art, memory, and emotion
• Why watercolor became the perfect medium for play, layering, and transformation
• The role of synchronicity in her travels through Ireland, Scotland, Paris, and southern France
• Why she believes life is not linear and neither is healing, forgiveness, or growth
• How kindness, boundaries, and self-compassion became central themes in both her life and work

Mary also shares the hard-won wisdom behind surviving divorce, miscarriage, cancer, and the death of loved ones without becoming bitter - and why one small act of kindness can echo for a lifetime. Dave brings his own reflections from psychology, teaching, grief, and spiritual meaning, creating a thoughtful conversation about what art can hold when words fall

MARY MARQUISS – BIO AND CONTACT INFORMATION

Marquiss developed her interest in art as a child, surrounded by the lush beauty of Oregon. Originally from Corvallis - she is a fifth generation Oregonian and has lived in Bend for 34 years.

Marquiss attended both the University of Oregon and UCLA, earning her Bachelor of Science degree in psychology. After graduating she became the Admissions Director for a private psychiatric hospital in Reno, Nevada, owned by HCA with 500 hospitals worldwide. After two years as the hospital Admissions Director she was promoted to Marketing Director and then became a Marketing Consultant for HCA.

In 1995 she moved to HCA’s corporate offices in Nashville to become the product manager for Seniority – a benefit that only comes with age - which was franchised in hospitals across the country.

When her daughter was born 38 years ago, she left her corporate career and returned to her love of art and writing.

“I focused primarily on watercolor because it can be playful, has a beautiful transparency and teaches me about the challenge of controlling this medium – when to take it and when to let go – as in life,” she explains.

Marquiss has written and illustrated two cookbooks, and taught art and design classes to both adults and children in Bend for over 30 years.

Combing her art and writing she is the author of the forthcoming book: Behind the Painting – An Artist’s Memoir which holds ten of her paintings and a story interwoven behind each one over a thirty years trajectory. This book takes the reader on an adventure with both the high notes in Paris and finding love late in life through challenges she faced including family suicide, a stroke and cancer.

Her original art and book information can be seen at www.marymarquiss.com.

Email: mary.marquiss@gmail.com

Book: Behind the Painting on Amazon

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Fear does not disappear by accident. It gets transformed when you finally face the root, reframe the story, and stop calling stuck "fine." Claudia Wyatt returns with the energy, honesty, and hard-won insight to help you break the loops that keep you repeating the same patterns.

Dave Roberts and Claudia go deep on the hidden ways fear shows up - in change, in grief, in old childhood wounds, and in the pressure to stay comfortable. Claudia explains why the very thing you keep avoiding can become the doorway to your next level, and why your brain often clings to safety even when safety is keeping you small.

You'll discover:

• Why "fine" is often code for stuck
• How fear of change quietly shapes your decisions
• The difference between changing something and reframing it
• Why childhood moments can echo through adult behavior
• How to spot the patterns that keep replaying like Groundhog Day
• Why awareness is the first step to breaking the cycle

Claudia also shares how her own walkabout method grew out of her refusal to keep repeating the same emotional patterns. She and Dave explore what it really means to sit with pain instead of outrun it, and how that process can unlock confidence, clarity, and momentum you may not realize you already have.

If you are navigating a transition, carrying old baggage, or simply tired of living on autopilot, this conversation will meet you exactly where you are. It is a powerful listen for leaders, coaches, and anyone ready to move from fear into freedom.

Claudia's Bio and Contact Information

Claudia Wyatt is a globally recognized inspirational leader, international keynote speaker, consultant, coach and writer known as The Enthusiasm Igniter™ and Self-Doubt Eraser™. With over 20 years of experience coaching high-performing teams and leaders, she helps individuals and organizations break free from limiting beliefs, strengthen communication, and lead with unshakable confidence.

Claudia is a certified confidence, cognitive behavior and life purpose coach with emphasis in leadership, empowerment and wellness.

She is the founder of The Walkabout Method™, her signature framework guiding leaders & individuals to reclaim their power, elevate emotional intelligence, and lead boldly from within. Showing up as themselves for themselves and living on purpose.

Claudia was recently named Professional Training and Coaching Provider of the Year, New York, 2026. Claudia’s impact is immediate, audiences leave energized, empowered, and ready to rise.

Social Media Links:

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudiawyattcoaching/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/theclaudiawyatt/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61554805040594

Company pages:

LinkedIn: : https://www.linkedin.com/company/claudia-wyatt-coaching-llc/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567176611416

Website: https://claudiawyatt.com/

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Grief is grief is grief - and if you support people, lead teams, or live with loss yourself, this conversation will change how you think about it. Suzanne Jabour returns to unpack the overlooked world of pet loss, why it hits so hard, and how intuition led her from grief education into a new mission that many people desperately need.

After the death of her son Ben, Suzanne built a life around helping others understand grief more clearly. Now she’s following a new trail of breadcrumbs into pet-loss support, where shame, dismissal, guilt, and complicated family dynamics often leave people grieving in silence. She and Dave explore why pet loss is so often disenfranchised, why it can reopen older grief, and why animals can become anchors of comfort, identity, and survival.

You’ll discover:

• Why “you can just get another one” is one of the most harmful responses to pet loss
• How pet grief can be intensified when an animal is linked to a deceased loved one
• Why some pets become lifelines during the hardest seasons of life
• What actually happens inside Suzanne’s pet loss gatherings
• The surprising framework that makes support more effective: say something open, offer something specific
• Why grieving people need long-term help, not just sympathy in the first few days

Dave also brings his own lived experience of profound loss, creating a raw, honest conversation about how grief reshapes identity, how support groups help people find language and belonging, and why the emotional load of loss cannot be measured by society’s approval of it. Together, they make the case for a kinder, smarter, more human way of showing up for people in pain.

This episode is essential listening for grief professionals, pet lovers, caregivers, workplace leaders, and anyone who has ever felt dismissed in their mourning. If you’ve ever wondered how to support someone after a loss - or what to do with your own - this conversation gives you the language, the perspective, and the reminder that no grief deserves to be minimized.

Suzanne’s Bio and Contact Information

Suzanne is a grieving mom who has found meaning in her loss through providing grief education – sharing how grief really works and how we can support people experiencing it. She works with organizations and businesses to build the skills and protocols to better support people who are grieving at work. She is available as a speaker to share her story and help normalize grief as a healthy response to losses big and small. She has a BA and BEd and decades of experience as a trainer. She is a certified Grief Educator, Transformational Coach and Workshop Leader.

Connect with Suzanne Jabour

Website: https://suzannejabour.com

Pet Loss Gatherings: https://suzannejabour.com/pets

LInkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanne-jabour

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What if your next chapter is not a restart, but a metamorphosis? Dr. Vasundhara Tolia - physician, former pediatric gastroenterologist, and self-taught visual artist - shares how she turned a distinguished medical career into a second act built on creativity, resilience, and purpose.Host Dave Roberts sits down with Dr. Vasu to trace the path from India to Michigan, from pioneering pediatric gastroenterology to finding a new voice on canvas after medicine. Along the way, she reveals how the same skills that made her a strong clinician - observation, listening, empathy, and comfort with uncertainty - became the foundation of her art.You'll discover:

• Why practice and persistence matter more than innate talent
• How a medical mindset shapes abstract and semi-abstract painting
• The meaning behind her mixed-media pieces, including Entangled and Twilight Tidbits
• How she uses found objects, texture, acrylics, and symbolism to create emotionally layered work
• Why she sees art as a form of healing, not just decoration

Dr. Vasu also opens up about the identity shift that comes with leaving a career that defined you, and how she rebuilt meaning without discarding the wisdom of everything that came before. Her story is a powerful reminder that reinvention does not require erasing your past - it asks you to build on it.They also explore the charitable mission behind her art, including her support for mental health awareness, trafficking survivors, women's empowerment, neurodivergent individuals, and environmental protection. She even shares how she donates 50% of original artwork sales to the charity chosen by the buyer.This episode is essential listening for physicians, artists, educators, caregivers, and anyone standing at the edge of a major life transition. If you need a reminder that creativity can renew purpose, and that your experience still belongs to you no matter how your life evolves, this conversation will stay with you.

Dr Vasu's Bio and Contact Information

Dr. Vasundhara (Vasu) Tolia is a physician and visual artist whose work bridges science and creativity. After a distinguished career as a tenured Professor and Chief of Pediatric Gastroenterology at Wayne State University — where she established Michigan's first pediatric endoscopy unit and published over 150 peer-reviewed papers — she reinvented herself as a visual artist.

Her artwork has been selected by The Washington Post as one of the nation's Top 20 COVID-era artworks, featured on the cover of the CDC's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, and shown in numerous solo and juried exhibitions. She has contributed a chapter to the anthology Mastery Unleashed: Stories & Strategies to Unleash Your Potential, and her story has been featured on over 45 podcasts.

Website: www.vasutolia.art

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/vasundhara.tolia

Instagram @toliavasu L

inkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vasundhara-tolia-79695a34/

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Death does not have to be a family emergency. Niki Weiss, a digital thanatologist, shows why the smartest move you can make is to build your plan while life is good, everyone is of sound mind, and the paperwork is still manageable.

If you think end-of-life planning is only about wills, this conversation will change the way you think about your phone, your passwords, your photos, your subscriptions, your bank accounts, and even your AI chats. Dave Roberts and Niki break down why we are the first generation to die with more digital assets than physical ones, and why that makes legacy planning more urgent than ever.

You’ll discover:

• Why “digital hygiene” is now a real part of adulting
• The legal, financial, physical, and digital pieces every family needs to organize
• Why a HIPAA release form matters the moment a child turns 18
• How legacy contacts on iPhone and Android can save your loved ones from court orders and chaos
• The “intention-action gap” that keeps people from ever getting started
• Why different end-of-life scenarios require different playbooks

Niki also explains how her company, Endevo, uses a “Final Playbook” to help people prepare for three very different paths: sudden death, terminal diagnosis, and long-term care. Along the way, she shares the real-world consequences of doing nothing, from probate headaches to family conflict to the emotional and financial cost of being unprepared.

This episode is especially important if you’re a parent sending a child to college, managing a blended family, caring for aging relatives, or simply trying to make sure the people you love are not left with confusion when they need clarity most.

About Niki

Niki Weiss is a digital thanatologist and the creator of Endevo and the Digital Legacy Podcast, where she helps people and organizations face death and dying in the digital age with clarity, dignity, and intention.

Contact Information

LinkedIn: Niki Weiss

Website: https://endevo.life

Website: https://finalplaybook.com

If you want to live fully and die ready, this is essential listening.

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What if your best performers are the ones most likely to quietly break your company? Jackie Roby reveals why "palatability culture" creates stalled leaders, hidden burnout, and the kind of polite silence that kills innovation, retention, and trust.

Executive leadership advisor Jackie Roby and Teaching Journeys host Dave Roberts unpack the real cost of rewarding agreement over honesty, and why so many high achievers end up shrinking themselves just to stay safe at work. Jackie shares the personal and professional experiences that shaped her mission, from early workplace bullying to the family role that trained her to become the peacemaker.

You’ll discover why insecure leadership turns teams into battlegrounds, how survival mode shows up as overworking, appeasing, and analysis paralysis, and why even your strongest people may not know how to rest. Jackie breaks down the difference between productivity and contribution, and explains how simple practices like pausing, naming what you feel, breathing, and writing for two minutes can create real change.

They also explore the leadership traps that come with scaling businesses, why delegation often fails when founders can’t model healthy behavior, and how to introduce dissent without destroying collaboration. Dave adds sharp insight from his own leadership experience, making this a conversation that connects workplace psychology to practical, everyday management.

Jackie also shares the story behind Inspired Journey Consulting, the thinking behind her upcoming book, Palatable, Profitable and Dying Inside, and the kind of culture she wants to help leaders build instead: one where people are trusted, heard, and able to contribute fully instead of just being agreeable.

Essential listening for executives, founders, HR leaders, and anyone who knows the cost of a team that looks fine on the surface but is quietly running on empty.

Jackie’s Bio and Contact Information

Bio: Jackie Roby is an Executive Leadership Advisor and founder of Inspired Journey Consulting. She helps organizations spot the hidden cost of high performers who've learned to make everyone else comfortable instead of speaking up, and what that costs in retention and leadership pipeline. Her book, Palatable, Profitable, and Dying Inside, comes out this October. She chairs the Global Wellness Institute's Inclusive Wellness Initiative and has spoken internationally, from Dubai to Ibiza to Mexico.

Website: https://inspiredjourneyconsulting.com/

Social Media:

https://www.instagram.com/inspiredjourneyconsulting

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackie-roby/

The Teaching Journeys Podcast can be found on YouTube and your favorite podcast platforms

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