Description

I didn't turn on the mic to coach you, teach you, or tell you what you want to hear.

I turned it on because everybody was talking and nobody was saying anything real that spoke to me and the shit that I had been through.

Death. Marriage. Cancer. Identity. Rage. Grief. Shame. Hope. Lust. Aging.

The quiet shit people feel but don't say out loud in a way that resonates with those of us that have had our asses kicked by life.

That's what this is.

This is me saying the shit I had to suppress lest I get my ass kicked for speaking out of turn — or saying the shit that people wanted to hear but pretended was offensive, out of line, and just downright too true for the moment.

Fuck it.

No rah-rah. No "everything happens for a reason." No affirm-your-way-out-of-reality bullshit. Just adult talk about adult life from someone who's actually lived it — four marriages, four divorces, a suicide attempt, a dead infant son, and somehow I'm still fucking here. Doing all of this living with a lot less guilt and shame than I ever thought possible.

I never thought that shit would happen.

But it did.

You'll hear two names for this podcast. The Real Empowered Self came first. The Blue Collar Buddha came later — born in the middle of my wife Sharon's cancer treatments, when I needed somewhere to put what I couldn't say out loud to her.

Both are me. If you listen long enough, it makes sense.

Expect profanity. Unfiltered opinions. Moments that land harder than you expected.

If you want mantras and a 10-step plan — keep walking.

If you're tired of being lied to, and maybe a little tired of lying to yourself — you're in the right place.

And when Sharon joined the mic, something shifted. We Say The Shit Out Loud is what happens when two people who have actually done the interior work — separately, painfully, over years — sit down together and say the things most couples perform around, avoid entirely, or dress up so nobody gets uncomfortable. Her cancers. His losses. The relationship patterns that nearly broke both of them before they found each other. The life they're building now, on their own terms, without apology. If Blue Collar Buddha is one man's honest account of getting here, We Say The Shit Out Loud is what it looks like once you arrive — and discover there's still more to say.