Think Outside the Lines

Shawn Feeney
  • 5.0 (28)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Biweekly

The old scripts for how to live, work, and belong are breaking down. Think Outside the Lines is a podcast for anyone ready to stop checking boxes, step off autopilot, and start living with intention. Host Shawn Feeney spent over a decade leading teams at Apple, Microsoft, and high-pressure tech startups before dedicating his work to helping others live more intentionally. The show explores what happens when we choose to build the life we want rather than accepting the one we were handed.

  1. 21h ago

    What If Doing Less Isn't Lazy—But Intentional?

    Let me guess. You feel like you're not doing enough. Even right now, there's a background loop in your head saying you should be doing more, be further along, be more productive. And it doesn't matter how much you actually get done, the feeling stays. Because it was never really about the work. It's about a belief: that your worth is tied to your output. This short solo episode takes that belief apart. Hustle culture didn't just tell you to work hard, it told you that working hard is who you are, until slowing down started to feel like falling behind. But doing more of the wrong things doesn't make you successful, it just makes you tired. There is a real difference between being busy and being aligned, and busyness is often the socially acceptable way to avoid asking whether any of this is what you actually want to be doing. In this episode, we explore: The belief that your worth is tied to your output, where it came from, and why the feeling never quiets no matter how much you doThe difference between being busy and being aligned, and how much of a full week is really just motionBusyness as a shield, and the hardest question it keeps you from having to sit withIntentional rest versus numbing, and why choosing to stop on purpose takes real courageWhat opens up when you do less of the wrong things, and why you are not your output Resources & Links: Ready to step off autopilot? Visit thinkoutsidethelines.com to access free worksheets designed to help you cut through the noise, ask the right questions, and finally hear yourself clearlyExplore 1:1 coaching and other resources at thinkoutsidethelines.comFollow along on all platforms → @thinkoutsidethelines Enjoyed the episode? Please share it with someone who might need to hear it, and subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next.

  2. Sep 25

    Amanda Udis-Kessler (Pt 2): What If You Traded Control for Presence?

    When Amanda Udis-Kessler came back for a second conversation, the ground had shifted again. In Part 1, she told the story of rebuilding her entire life at sixty. This time she goes inward, to the harder, quieter work of showing up as her whole self once the external obstacles are gone. What she keeps hearing, in her job, her friendships, and her own healing, is a single instruction: trade control for presence. After sixty years of managing life's challenges by trying to control everything, she is learning to simply be there, to listen more than she speaks, and to trust that presence alone can meet the needs of a moment. She calls the old habit the conscientious cartographer. The new practice is being a steady witness. Amanda is a queer pastor leading a progressive Christian congregation in Colorado Springs, which she calls the Evangelical Vatican of the United States. From that vantage point, the conversation opens out into attention and overwhelm in a culture built to keep us reactive, what it means to witness someone rather than fix them, and the internalized homophobia many of us absorbed without ever choosing it. This is a conversation about presence over control, listening over solving, and finding creativity and hope in a loud, fast, divided moment. In this episode, we explore: What it means to trade control for presence, and why that is so hard after a lifetime of managing everythingThe difference between being a witness and being a fixer, and why people often just need to be heardHow the urge to give advice can come from insecurity rather than confidenceWhy our feeds, our culture, and even our institutions are built to keep us overwhelmed and reactivePractical ways to notice the default toward negativity and gently choose something elseWhat it is like to be a queer pastor in one of the most conservative cities in the countryInternalized homophobia, how it shows up, and why we don't talk about it enoughReclaiming language and faith that were once used to cause harmWhere Amanda finds hope, and why her creativity feels like evidence of something bigger than herself Resources & Links: Connect with Amanda, her books, music, and work → amandaudiskessler.comHer free progressive worship music → queersacredmusic.comReady to step off autopilot? Visit thinkoutsidethelines.com to access free worksheets designed to help you cut through the noise, ask the right questions, and finally hear yourself clearlyExplore 1:1 coaching and other resources at thinkoutsidethelines.comFollow along on all platforms → @thinkoutsidethelines Enjoyed the episode? Please share it with someone who might need to hear it, and subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next.

  3. Sep 18

    Amanda Udis-Kessler (Pt 1): What If the Wake-Up Call Isn't One Big Moment?

    At sixty, in the span of a single year, Amanda Udis-Kessler ended a thirty-year relationship, left the home she shared, walked away from a two-decade career in higher education, and became the pastor of a small church. From the outside it can look like one dramatic reinvention. Up close, it was anything but. There was no single lightning-bolt moment. There was a cancer diagnosis that reminded her she would not live forever. There was a health crisis that interrupted a lifelong eating disorder and, for the first time, left her unable to numb what she was feeling. There was a quiet, years-long knowing that something was off, and a marriage she could not bring herself to leave until her partner found the courage to ask the question first. Amanda is a writer, a musician, and now a pastor in Colorado Springs, a city she calls the Evangelical Vatican of the United States. In this first of two conversations, she traces how all of these threads came together, and what it took to finally say yes to a life that fit. This is a conversation about the slow, stumbling nature of real change, the difference between numbing a feeling and facing it, codependency and the boundaries that finally set her free, and why creating the life you want is rarely one big leap and more often a series of small, brave gates you walk through one at a time. In this episode, we explore: Why a wake-up call is rarely one dramatic moment, and more often a slow stumble through many smaller onesHow ending a long relationship, leaving home, and changing careers all unfolded in a single yearWhat it means to finally say yes to a change you have avoided for yearsHow a lifelong eating disorder kept hard emotions at bay, and what surfaced when she could no longer numb themCodependency in both a marriage and a career, and the boundaries that made a healthier life possibleThe boundary described as "the distance at which I can love both you and myself"Why you cannot change another person, only model change through the work you do on yourselfChoosing progressive Christianity as a form of resistance, and stepping into ministry in a deeply conservative cityHow to sit with a discomfort you can't yet name, and gently ask it what it is about Resources & Links: Connect with Amanda, her books, music, and work → amandaudiskessler.comHer free progressive worship music → queersacredmusic.comReady to step off autopilot? Visit thinkoutsidethelines.com to access free worksheets designed to help you cut through the noise, ask the right questions, and finally hear yourself clearlyExplore 1:1 coaching and other resources at thinkoutsidethelines.comFollow along on all platforms → @thinkoutsidethelines Enjoyed the episode? Please share it with someone who might need to hear it, and subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next.

  4. Sep 11

    What Permission Are You Still Waiting For?

    There's something you want to do. You've thought about it for months, maybe years. You've imagined it, researched it, talked around it with friends who told you to go for it. And still, you haven't started. If someone asked you why, you'd have a list of good, practical reasons. But underneath all of them is a simpler one you probably haven't said out loud: you're waiting for permission. This short solo episode sits with that quiet truth. Nobody hands out permission slips for career changes, creative projects, or hard conversations, and the signal you keep waiting for is never going to come, because that is not how permission works. The people who love you can tell you they're proud, that they support you, that you're ready, and it helps, but you still go home and don't start. The permission gap was never between you and them. It's between you and yourself. In this episode, I explore: Why "the timing isn't right" and "I need to learn more first" are often permission-seeking in disguiseWhere the habit of looking up for approval begins, and why it outlives the childhood that taught itThe difference between managing, waiting for the green light, and leading, giving it to yourselfWhy no one in any hierarchy is going to authorize the choices that matter most to youWhat it looks like to grant yourself permission, quietly and without apology, and start now Resources & Links: Ready to step off autopilot? Visit thinkoutsidethelines.com to access free worksheets designed to help you cut through the noise, ask the right questions, and finally hear yourself clearlyExplore 1:1 coaching and other resources at thinkoutsidethelines.comFollow along on all platforms → @thinkoutsidethelines Enjoyed the episode? Please share it with someone who might need to hear it, and subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next.

  5. Sep 4

    Gila Melamed: What If You've Been on the Right Path All Along?

    At fifty-something, Gila Melamed gave away ninety-eight percent of what she owned, converted first a small car and then a minivan into a home, and drove off to live nomadically in the wild she had always felt she belonged to. She does not call it an escape. She calls it an experiment in alignment. The road was the last step in a much longer story. Years earlier, at her lowest point, Gila survived a moment that nearly ended her life. A single sentence from her therapist, that a decision made seventeen years ago could be remade, gave her back her breath. She asked for a divorce that same day, and slowly began the years-long work of coming back to herself. Underneath it all was a childhood shaped by an abusive father, a loneliness she carried for decades, and the belief that her sensitivity was something wrong with her. Through her own healing, she came to understand it as her greatest strength. On a hot morning in Yosemite, off the trail and drawn toward the view like a magnet, she had the realization that anchors her life now: she had been on the right path all along. Gila is a former home and color designer turned nomad, writer, and self-published author of three books who documents her journey on Substack. She lives simply, works seasonally to fund her travels, and treats fear not as something to eliminate but as a dance partner she walks with every single day. This is a conversation about surrender, learning to trust yourself after a lifetime of other people's voices, the difference between fear and intuition, breaking generational patterns, and what becomes possible when you stop waiting and finally give yourself the life your heart has been asking for. In this episode, we explore: Leaving a conventional life to live on the road, not as an escape but as an experiment in alignmentThe turning point that gave her back her life, and the single sentence that changed everythingComing home to yourself after decades of living by other people's voicesWhy she came to see her sensitivity as a strength rather than a flawBreaking generational trauma, and choosing to parent differently than she was raisedThe realization in Yosemite that she had been on the right path all alongFear as a dance partner, and how to tell the difference between fear and intuitionSurrender, uncertainty, and finding aliveness in not having a planHow solitude in nature became a mirror and a teacherThe quiet ceremony of a slow morning, and presence as a daily practiceWriting as a way to process, and letting a loud inner voice lead her to finally share her story If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 in the US. Call or text 988. Resources & Links: Connect with Gila, find her three books, and follow her blog → gilacolorguru.comReady to step off autopilot? Visit thinkoutsidethelines.com to access free worksheets designed to help you cut through the noise, ask the right questions, and finally hear yourself clearlyExplore 1:1 coaching and other resources at thinkoutsidethelines.comFollow along on all platforms → @thinkoutsidethelines Enjoyed the episode? Please share it with someone who might need to hear it, and subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next.

  6. Aug 28

    What Would You Choose If No One Was Watching?

    Here is a question that sounds simple and gets uncomfortable fast. What would you choose if no one was watching? Not what would you do without consequences. That is a different question. This one is about audience. Because most of us are performing all the time, and we have been doing it so long we have forgotten we are doing it. This short solo episode looks at the quiet cost of that performance. The steady editing of yourself for the room. Saying what will land instead of what you actually think. Choosing the path that makes sense to other people instead of the one that makes sense to you. It adds up slowly, choice by choice, until someone asks what you truly want and you realize you are not sure. The good news is that authenticity is far less exhausting than performance, and deciding for yourself is a skill you can practice, starting small. In this episode, I explore: How performing becomes invisible, until the edited version of you is the only one you rememberThe real reason it is so draining: living your life while monitoring how it looks to everyone elseThe difference between managing your image and leading from the insideWhy deciding for yourself is a skill, and why it can feel exposed at firstSmall places to start choosing for you, from what you order at dinner to when you leave the party Resources & Links: Ready to step off autopilot? Visit thinkoutsidethelines.com to access free worksheets designed to help you cut through the noise, ask the right questions, and finally hear yourself clearlyExplore 1:1 coaching and other resources at thinkoutsidethelines.comFollow along on all platforms → @thinkoutsidethelines Enjoyed the episode? Please share it with someone who might need to hear it, and subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next.

  7. Aug 21

    Alenka Kyslik: Who's Actually in Charge of Your Healing?

    Alenka Kyslik spent more than a decade as a corporate overachiever, a product manager who ran her projects like a mini CEO and pushed through every deadline, until her body simply shut down. Some mornings it took hours to get out of bed. She was grinding her teeth so hard her jaw shot with pain. On the worst days, she could barely write a few emails. She left that environment and slowly started to recover. Then, a year later, distracted and overwhelmed and not really present, she stepped off a curb and tore her ankle to shreds. What followed was a long, frustrating collision with a healthcare system that kept telling her to just live with it. So Alenka took ownership. She read the studies, asked the questions no one had thought to answer, paid out of pocket, and pieced together a more holistic path back to health, one that finally worked. Along the way she noticed something. Most people, when they are drained and overwhelmed, do not have the energy to put those pieces together for themselves. That is what led her to build Saha Collective, a marketplace that matches people with holistic health providers who actually fit them, and lifts the administrative weight off the practitioners so they can do what they do best. She traded the false stability of corporate for the terrifying, energizing work of building something she believes the world needs. This is a conversation about burnout and the signals we ignore, the difference between what drains you and what brings you back to life, taking ownership of your own health, and what it takes to bet on a mission that is stronger than your fear. In this episode, we explore: What burnout actually looked like, and why it built slowly long before she had a name for itThe body's early warning signs, from grinding teeth to a shut-down nervous system, and why we learn to ignore themThe added weight of doing all of this as an immigrant, where losing a job can mean leaving the countryPeople-pleasing, and how putting everyone else's comfort first quietly costs you yourselfFocusing on what gives you energy rather than what drains you, in work and in relationshipsGiving yourself grace, and why catching the signs early can keep you from lasting damageTaking ownership of your health when the conventional path keeps telling you to just live with itThe difference between "doing your own research" as real ownership and the internet version of itThe hardest part of navigating holistic care, where there is no clear path and no easy way to find the right personWhy a mission has to be stronger than the fear, and how obsession with a problem becomes a businessUsing AI as a tool without letting it replace the human conversations that matter Resources & Links: Connect with Alenka and learn more about Saha Collective → sahacollective.comFind Saha Collective on Instagram → @saha.collectiveReady to step off autopilot? Visit thinkoutsidethelines.com to access free worksheets designed to help you cut through the noise, ask the right questions, and finally hear yourself clearlyExplore 1:1 coaching and other resources at thinkoutsidethelines.comFollow along on all platforms → @thinkoutsidethelines Enjoyed the episode? Please share it with someone who might need to hear it, and subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next.

  8. Aug 14

    What If Boundaries Aren't Rejection—Just Clarity?

    Most of us have a complicated relationship with boundaries. We know we need them. We have read the books and heard the podcasts. And then someone asks for something we do not want to do, and we say yes anyway, because in the moment the discomfort of saying no feels worse than the resentment of saying yes. This short solo episode reframes what a boundary actually is. Not rejection, but clarity. When you set one, you are not pushing someone away, you are showing them how to be in your life in a way that works for both of you. Some people walk through that door, some do not, and both are information rather than failure. It also sits with the part nobody talks about, the guilt that shows up right after, and why that guilt is a signal, not a verdict. In this episode, I explore: Why saying yes when you mean no quietly costs you the time, energy, and presence that matter mostThe cultural lie that boundaries are rejection, and the truth that they are clarityWhy the people you respect most tend to be the ones with the clearest limitsHow to read the guilt that follows a boundary as a sign of something unfamiliar, not something wrongSimple, honest lines that set a boundary without cruelty, because clarity never requires it Resources & Links: Ready to step off autopilot? Visit thinkoutsidethelines.com to access free worksheets designed to help you cut through the noise, ask the right questions, and finally hear yourself clearlyExplore 1:1 coaching and other resources at thinkoutsidethelines.comFollow along on all platforms → @thinkoutsidethelines Enjoyed the episode? Please share it with someone who might need to hear it, and subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next.

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Trailer

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About

The old scripts for how to live, work, and belong are breaking down. Think Outside the Lines is a podcast for anyone ready to stop checking boxes, step off autopilot, and start living with intention. Host Shawn Feeney spent over a decade leading teams at Apple, Microsoft, and high-pressure tech startups before dedicating his work to helping others live more intentionally. The show explores what happens when we choose to build the life we want rather than accepting the one we were handed.

Information

  • Creator
    Shawn Feeney
  • Years Active
    2015 - 2026
  • Episodes
    74
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Shawn Feeney
  • Show Website
    Think Outside the Lines

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