The Anxious Voyage with Mark O’Brien

The Anxious Voyage with Mark O’Brien: Skipping School

Skipping School: Gail Harris, Carey Corr, and Colin Smith
Fifty-third Episode: The three people who share this episode with me also share an every-Thursday-morning experience on Zoom called The Friendship Bench. Those gatherings, which typically attract between 20 and 30 people, feature a rotation of hosts, each of whom will introduce a topic, say a few words about it, pose a question or two related to it, then send two or more of us into breakout rooms to discuss what’s been posed before rejoining the larger group after anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. On a recent Bench, I was assigned to a breakout room with Gail, Carey, and Colin.
After a few minutes, Gail said, “Why don’t the four of us stay here and talk and not go back to the big group?”
I called that skipping school. And here we are.
Gail is a certified ghostwriter specializing in women’s memoirs and an IPNE Book Award Finalist for the memoir, Finding Zoe. She collaborates with women who’ve risen above life’s challenges and are ready to share their journeys. Gail reveres the cathartic nature of storytelling — for the authors and for those who read their stories — because the healing is universal. She finds the gold in an author’s story or what sets it apart from other stories to make it marketable. Gail is also the author of the self-help book, Your Heart Knows the Answer. Her company is Golden Ghostwriting.
Carey creates narrative films that engage, entertain, enlighten, and connect with others who share the goal of using the power of film to move humanity forward. An experienced writer and director with a long history in the entertainment industry, he’s skilled in music videos, feature films, documentaries, and independent film. He has a bachelor’s degree in Film/Cinema/Video Studies from UC Irvine. His website is here.
Colin, affectionately known as The Listener, has an innate ability to deeply listen. His intention is to help as many people as possible become one percent better at listening, rather than trying to improve one person by 100 percent. Though we’re increasingly connected digitally, loneliness, suicide, and mental health issues, continue to rise because fewer people feel truly heard or valued. We seek to know we matter, to belong, to be able to share our thoughts and feelings without fear, and to know our contributions are valued. Colin has more than 20 years of experience facilitating, coaching, and guiding conversations. His company is Dexterity Solutions.
Please join us for some engaging conversation and some respectful listening.
Video Version: https://www.youtube.com/live/s1n-9mH6Lso?si=JcZJs3--3jU6M91O
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The Anxious Voyage with Mark O’Brien: Opposite of Empty

The Opposite of Empty: Izabela Oquendo
Fifty-second Episode: Izabela is a mental health professional, a speaker, and a transformation coach who takes a grounded yet expansive approach to manifestation by using mindfulness. Having worn many hats and after building multiple successful businesses, she chose a radically different path focused on travel, family, and purpose. Today, she empowers people to break free from fear, to trust their inner voices, and to build lives rooted in boldness, clarity, and joy. Through her signature programs and writing, she guides people to reconnect with their purposes, to rewire limiting beliefs, and to manifest from surrender and presence. Izabela’s book, The Opposite of Empty, provides a clear and compassionate blueprint for the introspective life that leads to the discovery of purpose-aligned work and life. Her mission is to encourage people riding waves of change to emerge as better, more aligned versions of themselves.
Video Version: https://www.youtube.com/live/boVGaEEh42Y?si=lmAJM4zc8TLn5wIS
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The Anxious Voyage with Mark O’Brien: This Pudding Has No Theme

This Pudding Has No Theme: Kevin Hinchey
Fifty-first Episode: Kevin is a graduate of Fairfield University and NYU’s Graduate Film School, a writer, a film professor, a filmmaker, a screenwriter, and was a member of the Writers Guild of America (West) in California for nearly 40 years. He’s also one of the most prolific storytellers I know. Most recently he was the co-director, writer, and researcher of the documentary film, Love, Work and Knowledge: The Life and Trials of Wilhelm Reich. He’s currently writing a play about Ulysses S. Grant.
Kevin has been a friend for more than 30 years. He once told me that, in expressing his dissatisfaction with a dessert, Winston Churchill is reputed to have said, “This pudding has no theme.” When I invited Kevin to join me on The Anxious Voyage, he accepted on the condition that we adopt Churchill’s expression as our theme for the show. And so, we shall.
Please join us for a themeless hour of stories, banter, friendship, and creativity.
Video Version: https://www.youtube.com/live/t01TXwSJJ6o?si=VvbebMPR7aNIl66A
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The Anxious Voyage with Mark O’Brien: Expanding Boundaries: Carolyn Lebanowski

Expanding Boundaries: Carolyn Lebanowski
Fiftieth Episode: Carolyn began her professional career in retail and grew to become an experienced and respected senior level executive with expertise in strategic development, organizational communication, and executive coaching. After nearly three decades in the corporate world, she was ready for change ‚ professional and personal — and found the most challenging, enriching, and rewarding work of her life as a Strategic Business Leader for nonprofit spiritual institutions. That gave her the opportunity to fuse the professional and the personal, aligning her business acumen with her spiritual identity and her passion for developing human potential — in her colleagues, in her community, and in herself.
A native of Houston, Texas, Carolyn and her husband have expanded their geographic boundaries and now reside in Cascais, Portugal. Since retiring, she also expanded the boundaries of her writing from letters to her children, to journaling, to writing for publication with a focus on raw, authentic, and lived experience — to explore, to express, and to make sense of the pain and joy, the struggles and triumphs of life. In all her endeavors, she champions connection, integrity, and radical positivity. Her most recent publication is, Your Light Shines Brightly: The Story of You.
Please join us for a wonderful conversation about life, living, and writing.
Video Version: https://www.youtube.com/live/zkwzntVzxR4?si=2JXrpgJ_xKA3ua0O
 
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The Anxious Voyage with Mark O’Brien: The Traveling Historian

The Traveling Historian: Bill Whiteside
Forty-Ninth Episode: After selling software for 30 years, Bill abandoned that career to finish writing a book he started researching to keep his mind engaged during his time on the road. He was intrigued by an incident from early in Winston Churchill’s first term as Britain’s prime minister. As he dug into the story from multiple angles, his diversion evolved into an obsession. The more he learned, the more it became a book he had to write. That book is The Attack that Shocked the World: Winston Churchill and the Royal Navy’s Assault on the French Fleet, to be published by the U.S. Naval Institute Press in Annapolis, Maryland. In the meantime, given what he learned in researching and writing that, he wrote and published another one: Everybody Knows a Salesman Can’t Write a Book. Bill joins me to talk about history, writing, learning, and whatever else crosses our minds. Please join us.
 
Video Version: https://www.youtube.com/live/FzGG8b6SPHw?si=fNwjSqNxcFCfjlEY
 
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The Anxious Voyage with Mark O’Brien: Love Your Space Anne O'Brien

Love Your Space: Anne O’Brien
Forty-Eighth Episode: I’ll be joined again by my wife, Anne. She’s the founder of The ArtFitters, an interior decorating and design firm. She re-imagines ordinary spaces (residential, commercial, historical, or institutional) to create the extraordinary — beautiful, organized, functional, and comfortable — through adaptive re-use and creative utilization. At an early age, she found herself drawing house plans, enjoying visits to furniture stores, and continually re-staging her bedroom. At age eight, she was more interested in picking out wallpaper, re-upholstering furniture, and re-decorating rooms than going out to play. In her professional life, the scopes of her projects grew larger. Her exposure to styles, materials, and furnishing became more broad. With more than 20 years of experience behind her, Anne is a visually inventive conceptual thinker who always sees the big picture. Because it informs her work, Anne made time for art. She had instruction in sculpting, pottery, Norwegian folk art, wood carving, dress, jewelry, and interior design. She studied painting at the Borgo Rinascimento International School of Art in Farnesi, Italy, and with numerous artists. We recently participated in a RoundTable 360˚ session, led by Anne, the topic of which was, Art as Space: Are You and Your Space Playing Nice With Each Other? We sincerely hope you’ll join us.
Video Version: https://www.youtube.com/live/YW3RQDJi2sk?si=M86V8k3K0gC_TBsk
 
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The Anxious Voyage with Mark O’Brien: The King of Main Street Peter J. Merrick

The King of Main Street: Peter J. Merrick
Forty-Seventh Episode: Peter — The King of Main Street — is an internationally recognized author, writer, and commentator. He helps business owners, professionals, families, and advisors navigate complex financial, tax, and estate planning challenges with clear, practical solutions and holds the Trust and Estate Practitioner (TEP) designation with the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP).
Peter co-authored the dystopian business novel, It Starts With Gold, exposing the hidden forces shaping international markets, vulnerabilities in modern financial systems, and the critical steps required to preserve wealth in uncertain times. It details the ways in which we’re being controlled through narrative control, financial collapse, digital enslavement, biological manipulation, plandemics, inflation, and supply chain disruptions — all intended to crush individual resolve, eliminate sovereignty, and create total dependence on a system designed to strip us of humanity.
Known for his bold perspectives, deep financial expertise, and engaging storytelling, Peter challenges conventional thinking and inspires action. His message is clear: The future belongs to those who prepare. He joins me for what promises to be an eye-opening conversation. We hope you join us, too.
Video Version: https://www.youtube.com/live/ZSfa-uYUz28?si=9nVzX3nXzg4CaPvi
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The Anxious Voyage with Mark O’Brien: The Comeback Kid: Lonnee Rey

The Comeback Kid: Lonnee Rey
Forty-Sixth Episode: Lonnee is a ghostwriter, a story-development coach and editor, a book producer, and an inspiration to countless aspiring writers. She’s developed a series of anthologies that include, 11th Hour Miracles: Amazing Short Stories of Divine intervention; The Advocates, the Healers and Heeding a Higher Calling; Rattled Awake (12 volumes), My Fur Baby Wrote This Book; Bullied: How I Got By; and SPEECHLESS: Giving the #voiceless a Voice. Decades of depression and periods of homeless lit the fire in Lonnee that she now shines and shares with the hundreds of authors she continues to work with. She’s the winner of a 2023 Best Indie Book Award, which recognizes outstanding achievements by independent authors. Lonnie was the guest on my second show, which aired on August 21, 2023. And I couldn’t be happier to welcome here back. Please join us.
Video Version:  https://www.youtube.com/live/TKZHbYm49Ds?si=0ORdki0X1OyJBzuA
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The Anxious Voyage with Mark O’Brien: State Your P.E.A.C.E.: Dave Wolffe

State Your P.E.A.C.E.: Dave Wolffe
Fortieth Episode: Dave developed the Anger Management Power (A.M.P.) Program that’s been used with more than 1,000 teens and 600 others, including parents, college students, and professionals who work with young people. It’s been used with Dispute Resolution and Teacher Education students in several New York area colleges and with parent and professional groups. Dave is committed to helping young people manage their anger in positive ways, to giving them information and methods by which to curtail bullying, and to helping adults who work with youngsters save them from physical, emotional or psychological pain. Dave has been an Adjunct Lecturer/Anger Management Specialist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, teaching P.E.A.C.E. (Peace Enhancement Attained-Collaborative Efforts) and a teacher and guidance counselor in the New York City Department of Education.
He joins me for what’s sure to be an hour of enlightenment and learning.
Video Version:  https://www.youtube.com/live/ahH2Tvl0I-8?si=lF0I8ddqzyrcOeox
Learn more about Mark here:
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The Anxious Voyage with Mark O’Brien: Pink-Collar Crime: Kelly Paxton

Pink-Collar Crime: Kelly Paxton
Kelly, the Pink Collar Crime Expert is a Certified Fraud Examiner, a former Private Investigator, a professional speaker, the founder of the Fraudish podcast, the author of the book, Embezzlement: How to Prevent, Detect and Investigate Pink-Collar Crime, and the creator of the website, Pink Collar Crime. Her most recent real job was working as a global investigator for Nike. Before being recruited by Nike, Kelly worked criminal defense and prosecution cases. She also worked as a fraud analyst and background investigator for Oregon’s Washington County Sheriff's Office. She has seven years of experience as a contract special investigator for the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Homeland Security and was a Special Agent for the US Customs Office of Investigations’ money laundering/white collar crime unit. Kelly joins me for what’s sure to be an exciting, eye-opening hour.
Video Version:  https://www.youtube.com/live/Qg5MLmwRado?si=CdWqyvdkvlCDmcyU
Learn more about Mark here:
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