Notes from the Edge

Gamut Podcast Network

Notes From the Edge is where polished stories end and the truth begins. Hosted by writer, trauma educator, executive advisor, and author Lisa Lacy, this globally ranked podcast explores survival, identity, trauma, addiction, recovery, leadership, relationships, and reinvention through raw, deeply human conversations. No scripts. No small talk. Just the stories we were taught to hide, the roles we performed to survive, and the truths that set us free. What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the edge. www.lisalacy.com

  1. 6h ago

    What If Grief Begins Before Goodbye? Suicide Loss, Mental Illness & Healing with Suzanne Sherman

    What happens when you begin grieving someone you love long before they’re gone? In this deeply personal episode of Notes From the Edge, host Lisa Lacy sits down with Suzanne Sherman, author, memoir editor, and writing coach, to explore childhood trauma, schizophrenia, suicide loss, complicated grief, and the healing power of storytelling. Suzanne was just four years old when her mother developed schizophrenia. At eighteen, she lost her mother to suicide. Decades later, she found the courage to tell their story in her memoir, Living in the Long Shadow: Surviving a Legacy of Mental Illness. But this conversation reveals something profound: sometimes we grieve not only the person we’ve lost, but the life mental illness prevented them from living. Through memories of her mother, decades of unanswered questions, and the decision to finally write her story, Suzanne explores how love, grief, and healing can coexist. In This Episode: Growing Up with a Parent with Schizophrenia: How Suzanne’s childhood changed when her mother’s mental illness emerged, and what happens when children are left to make sense of experiences nobody explains.Suicide Loss & Complicated Grief: The emotional complexity of losing her mother at eighteen, including the grief Suzanne experienced long before her mother’s death.Mental Illness, Family Silence & Childhood Survival: How unspoken struggles, family dynamics, and the need to remain observant can shape a child’s understanding of safety and belonging.Memoir Writing & Healing Through Storytelling: Why Suzanne waited decades to write Living in the Long Shadow, how she found the courage to revisit painful memories, and what writing taught her about her own life.Love Beyond Loss & Finding Meaning: An extraordinary personal experience that changed Suzanne’s understanding of her connection with her mother, the importance of honest communication, and the simple words that helped her persevere: “I can do this.”From the lasting effects of parental mental illness to the courage it takes to tell a deeply personal story, this conversation reminds us that grief doesn’t always begin with death, healing doesn’t require forgetting, and some of the most important conversations are the ones families never learned how to have. Connect with Suzanne Sherman Explore Suzanne’s memoir, writing workshops, coaching services, and weekly memoir classes. Website: https://suzannesherman.com Connect with Lisa | INSIDE THE EDGE Join INSIDE THE EDGE, a membership community for deeper human conversations, personal exploration, and meaningful connection beyond the podcast. https://www.lisalacy.com/inside-the-edge What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    What If Grief Begins Before Goodbye? Suicide Loss, Mental Illness & Healing with Suzanne Sherman
  2. 1d ago

    What If AI Became Your Next Employee? AI Workforce Revolution with Jon Rossiter

    What if artificial intelligence could give us more time to be human? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, host Lisa Lacy sits down with Jon Rossiter, entrepreneur and co-founder of Zoloto, to explore AI employees, business automation, leadership, and the future of work. But the conversation goes beyond technology. Jon opens up about people-pleasing, authenticity, accountability, and why meaningful human connection matters more than ever in an increasingly automated world. What happens when technology gives us back our time, but we still have to decide who we want to be? In This Episode: AI Employees & the Future of Work: How specialized artificial intelligence workers are transforming business operations, automation, and the way entrepreneurs manage their companies.Entrepreneurship, Productivity & Work-Life Balance: Why eliminating repetitive tasks could help business owners reduce stress, reclaim valuable time, and focus on what matters most.Leadership, Accountability & Human Trust: Why taking responsibility, acknowledging mistakes, and building authentic relationships remain essential in an increasingly automated world.People-Pleasing, Identity & Authenticity: Jon’s personal experience of letting go of the need for approval and learning to show up without wearing a mask.Human Connection & the Loneliness Epidemic: Why technology cannot replace emotional honesty, meaningful relationships, asking for help, and supporting one another. From AI-powered business transformation to the deeply human need for connection and belonging, this conversation challenges us to consider whether the future of work should be measured only by productivity or by the quality of the lives we’re creating. Connect with Jon Rossiter Co-Founder, Zoloto LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrossiterofficial/ Connect with Lisa | INSIDE THE EDGE https://www.lisalacy.com/inside-the-edge What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    What If AI Became Your Next Employee? AI Workforce Revolution with Jon Rossiter
  3. 2d ago

    The Money Monster Within: Managing Yourself Before You Manage Your Money | Part 2 with Doug Lynam

    What if your biggest financial obstacle isn’t your money, but the unconscious patterns controlling your decisions? Financial advisor, former monk, and bestselling author Doug Lynam returns to Notes From the Edge for a live Enneagram case study with Lisa Lacy, exploring how personality, trauma, fear, and identity shape our relationship with money. In this episode: Why financial stress activates survival instincts and unconscious emotional patterns.How the nine Enneagram personality types influence spending, saving, control, and financial decisions.A live examination of Lisa’s Type 8 personality, including power, boundaries, anger, and the fear of being controlled.How Type 8 and Type 5 personality patterns affect relationships, communication, and financial behavior.How self-awareness, compassion, and intentional choices can transform destructive money patterns into healthier financial habits.Missed Part 1? The Wealth We Can’t Spend: From Marine to Monk to Money Manager with Douglas Lynam. Find it on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/notes-from-the-edge/id1896943121 Connect with Doug Lynam: https://www.douglynam.com Connect with Lisa Lacy | INSIDE THE EDGE Membership: https://www.lisalacy.com/inside-the-edge What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    The Money Monster Within: Managing Yourself Before You Manage Your Money | Part 2 with Doug Lynam
  4. 3d ago

    What If One Bed Could Change Everything? Purpose Driven Leadership with Luke Mickelson

    What happens when the life you’ve worked so hard to build no longer feels like the life you’re meant to live? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, host Lisa Lacy sits down with Luke Mickelson, founder of Sleep in Heavenly Peace, to explore purpose-driven leadership, community service, personal identity, vulnerability, and how one small act of kindness can grow into a movement that changes hundreds of thousands of lives. Luke had everything he thought success was supposed to look like. A six-figure career, financial stability, a family, and a comfortable life. But something was missing. Then a simple project to build a bunk bed for children sleeping on the floor changed everything. Luke shares the unforgettable story of Haley, a six-year-old girl who had been sleeping on her school clothes because she didn’t have a bed. When she received her very first bed, she wrapped her arms around it and kissed it. That moment transformed Luke’s understanding of success, service, and what it means to make a difference. What began as a small community project became Sleep in Heavenly Peace, an international nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that no child has to sleep on the floor. But this conversation goes far beyond building beds. Lisa and Luke explore the loneliness that can exist behind professional success, the unexpected fulfillment that comes from helping others, and the personal cost of believing that leadership means always having the answers. Luke also opens up about letting go of pride, ego, and the identity he spent years performing, discovering that vulnerability may be one of the greatest strengths a leader can develop. In this episode: Success vs. Fulfillment: Why achieving everything society calls success can still leave us questioning our purpose.One Bed, Thousands of Lives: How Haley’s story helped ignite a community movement addressing childhood bedlessness.The Five Steps to Finding Purpose: Luke’s approach to meaningful action: see it, feel it, act on it, repeat it, and share it.Community Service and Human Connection: How volunteering creates belonging, shifts our perspective, and reminds us that we’re not meant to navigate life alone.Leadership, Identity, and Vulnerability: Why letting go of the need to be strong, have every answer, and perform for others can be profoundly freeing. This is a conversation about ordinary people doing extraordinary things, not because they have all the resources or answers, but because they decide to act. And perhaps the most powerful reminder is that you don’t have to change the entire world to change someone’s world. Connect with Luke Mickelson Learn about Sleep in Heavenly Peace, find a local chapter, volunteer to build or deliver beds, donate, or start a chapter in your community. https://shpbeds.org/ Connect with Lisa | INSIDE THE EDGE Go beyond the public conversations with exclusive solo episodes, deeper discussions, and monthly live experiences. https://www.lisalacy.com/inside-the-edge What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    What If One Bed Could Change Everything? Purpose Driven Leadership with Luke Mickelson
  5. 4d ago

    Edge Note: What if the thing destroying your peace is control?

    In this Edge Note solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy gets personal about Bipolar I, trauma, uncertainty, and the exhausting need to control outcomes when your nervous system learned early that powerlessness could be dangerous. This is not another “just let it go” conversation. Lisa explores what control actually looks like when you live with mental illness, why uncertainty can feel threatening even when you are clinically supported and properly medicated, and how to separate what requires action from what simply requires us to tolerate not knowing yet. In this episode: Why trauma and mental illness can make uncertainty feel like dangerThe difference between taking responsible action and trying to control an outcomeHow hypervigilance can disguise itself as preparation, responsibility, and problem-solvingHow to separate facts from catastrophic predictions when your mind is activatedPractical tools for grounding, shrinking time, regulating your body, and deciding what actually needs your attention right now If you have ever done everything you could and still found yourself obsessing over what happens next, this conversation is for you. The goal is not to stop caring about outcomes. It is to trust yourself enough to know that you can survive the uncertainty between action and outcome. Connect with Lisa Lacy Inside the Edge: https://www.lisalacy.com/inside-the-edge What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Edge Note: What if the thing destroying your peace is control?
  6. 5d ago

    Edge Note: What if your mind understands the trauma, but your body is still surviving it?

    You can understand your patterns. You can know where they came from. You can spend years learning the language of trauma and healing, and still find your body reacting as if the danger never ended. In this Edge Note episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with registered somatic movement therapist and educator Katy Slany for a conversation about somatic therapy, nervous system regulation, embodied healing, and why insight alone does not always create lasting change. Katy explains why trauma is a whole-body experience, what people actually mean when they talk about “regulating the nervous system,” and how learning to tolerate and understand our physical sensations can change the way we respond to anxiety, fear, relationships, and the world around us. She also shares her own healing journey and how survival, illness, isolation, and the fear of connection became deeply intertwined. This conversation is ultimately about something bigger than regulation. It is about recovering choice, autonomy, and the ability to listen to the wisdom of your own body. In this episode: • Why understanding trauma intellectually may not change the body’s response • What nervous system regulation actually means and why it is often oversimplified • How somatic work can help us reconnect with sensations we have learned to avoid • Why healing is not a destination, but a changing relationship with our experiences • How inherited beliefs, survival patterns, and conditioning can disconnect us from our autonomy and power Connect with Katy Slany: Katy Slany | Transformative Somatic Education Connect with Lisa Lacy Inside the Edge: https://www.lisalacy.com/inside-the-edge What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Edge Note: What if your mind understands the trauma, but your body is still surviving it?
  7. 6d ago

    What if it's still not enough? Achievement Addiction, Human Performance & Finding Meaning with Dr. Jack Groppel

    What happens when you achieve everything you thought you wanted and discover it still doesn’t feel like enough? Dr. Jack Groppel is a pioneering sports scientist and co-founder of the Human Performance Institute whose work reveals a powerful truth: peak performance and a meaningful life are not necessarily the same thing. In this conversation, Jack and Lisa explore how achievement can become addictive, why our need for approval can hide underneath ambition, and what decades of studying elite human performance taught him about energy, recovery, and fulfillment. Jack also shares how adopting his son and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro together ultimately forced him to reconsider his definitions of strength, fatherhood, success, and what matters most. In this episode: Human performance and sports scienceAchievement addiction and overachievementThe need for approval and people pleasingBurnout, energy management, and recoveryFatherhood and adoptionLeadership and high performancePurpose, meaning, and fulfillmentMount Kilimanjaro and Mountains WithinRedefining success  Learn more about Dr. Jack Groppel and Mountains Within: https://jackgroppel.net Explore more from Lisa Lacy Inside the Edge: Inside The Edge — Lisa Lacy What did you perform in order to survive?  Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    What if it's still not enough? Achievement Addiction, Human Performance & Finding Meaning with Dr. Jack Groppel
  8. Oct 9

    What If Pushing Through Is the Problem? Burnout, Autoimmunity & Healing with Kristen Renee Appleby

    What happens when the thing that made you successful, your ability to push through, perform, achieve, and keep going, becomes the very thing your body can no longer sustain? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with author, transformational coach, and founder of The Rebuild Collective, Kristen Renee Appleby, for a conversation about burnout, autoimmune illness, the mind-body connection, and what it really means to rebuild your life from the foundation up. Kristen spent years searching for answers while navigating autoimmune illness, chronic inflammation, demanding work, financial stress, emotional suppression, and the expectation that she should simply keep functioning. Eventually, she began questioning whether all of those pieces were actually separate. We talk about what happens when achievement becomes intertwined with survival, why changing a protocol without changing the environment may not be enough, and how our relationships with work, money, emotions, purpose, and ourselves can influence the way we experience our lives. This conversation isn’t about abandoning ambition. It’s about asking whether the life you’re building actually has a foundation strong enough to hold it. In this episode: • How burnout and high-achiever survival patterns can hide behind capability and success • Autoimmune illness, chronic inflammation, emotional suppression, and the mind-body connection • Workplace stress, unhealthy environments, and what happens when pushing through stops working • Financial stress, money wounds, limiting beliefs, and the connection between physical and financial wellness • Kristen’s Healthy Foundation approach to rebuilding self-trust, authenticity, purpose, and a life that doesn’t require abandoning ambition Connect with Kristen Renee Appleby: https://www.kristenreneerebuilding.com Connect with Lisa | Inside the Edge: https://www.lisalacy.com/inside-the-edge What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    What If Pushing Through Is the Problem? Burnout, Autoimmunity & Healing with Kristen Renee Appleby
4.8
out of 5
113 Ratings

About

Notes From the Edge is where polished stories end and the truth begins. Hosted by writer, trauma educator, executive advisor, and author Lisa Lacy, this globally ranked podcast explores survival, identity, trauma, addiction, recovery, leadership, relationships, and reinvention through raw, deeply human conversations. No scripts. No small talk. Just the stories we were taught to hide, the roles we performed to survive, and the truths that set us free. What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the edge. www.lisalacy.com

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