Motivational Minute 09 – We Are At Our Strongest When We Work Together
In this Motivational Minute, we are gonna get into the importance of community, and how the ultimate act of resistance is coming together with folks that we share values with.
Thursday’s full-length episode will dive deeper into this, and will air on Thursday, July 27th, 2026.
In this episode, I get to chat with Meg Perry! Meg is an author of LGBTQIA+ mystery and has several series going, and has so far published over 40 books! Meg is a dear friend of mine and in this conversation we talk about creativity, inspiration, where the ideas, characters, and plots come from, the importance of communication and human connection, earmarks for success, and the impact of AI in creative spaces and globally.
Meg brought up Andrew Sullivan, and the term Christianism. I found an article by Andrew Sullivan on Substack from 2020 that provides further insight into Christianism vs Christianity – in brief, he talks about a fanatical, warped variation of an otherwise loving and tolerant belief system: https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/christianism-and-our-democracy-0cc
Motivational Minute episodes go live every Monday. Full-length episodes go live every Thursday.
Support is always appreciated! Likes, comments, and subscriptions are welcome! If you’d like to further support Smashing Success Stories, one-time and/or monthly Ko-Fi donations are available: https://ko-fi.com/smashingsuccessstories
Motivational Minute 08 – HOT TAKE We Are Losing Connection
We’ve got a hot take today, and this one is about how we as a society are losing connection. So, what’s the solution? This one is a little longer than our usual minute, but we get into it and we’ll go even deeper into this discussion with LGBTQIA+ author Meg Perry in our conversation which will air on Thursday, July 23rd, 2026.
Motivational Minute episodes go live every Monday. Full-length episodes go live every Thursday.
Strength to Love by Dr. Martin Luther King: I highly recommend buying this one from Mahogany Books, an independent black-owned bookstore: https://www.mahoganybooks.com/9780800697402
Support is always appreciated! Likes, comments, and subscriptions are welcome! If you’d like to further support Smashing Success Stories, one-time and/or monthly Ko-Fi donations are available: https://ko-fi.com/smashingsuccessstories
This episode features an amazing guest – Karen Lee-Coss! Karen is a powerhouse! She’s genuine and authentic, always has insight to share, and anyone who knows her will undoubtedly tell you that she’s a rock star.
What I’ve always loved about Karen is that she’s fabulous, yet grounded. Wise from the challenges and experiences that life has given her, yet she’s incredibly hopeful. She’s honest while being kind, and has her shit together without being superior about it.
I wanted to have Karen on the program because she has a beautiful message about going beyond just surviving difficult times. Her message is about finding purpose and meaning in every moment, and communicating an honest message of hope to uplift and support others.
Karen shares about how some of the challenges she faces have also become blessings, insight into her choices when it comes to her mindset, and how to navigate through stress and fatigue while also being a full-time working professional, caregiver for her mother, a spouse, and a mom.
She’s a woman of faith who is accepting, loving and kind, and she shares her positive message while including everyone; meaning, she’s not preachy nor judgmental.
We talk, we laugh, and we have an awesome conversation!
I’m still working on optimizing my microphone setup when doing in-person interviews and did my best with the resources available to me, apologies for any modulation issues!
Support is always appreciated! Likes, comments, and subscriptions are welcome! If you’d like to further support Smashing Success Stories, one-time and/or monthly Ko-Fi donations are available: https://ko-fi.com/smashingsuccessstories
ALSO if you know of someone who has had a near-death experience, and/or a healthcare worker and/or caregiver that has a story to share about experiencing/witnessing this, I’d LOVE to speak with them and have them on the program! Go to https://smashingsuccessstories.com/Nominations/ and fill out the form, please and thank you 🙂
The twin brothers – I think it’s Les Brown that shares this story, and I spent half a day trying to find where he shared it (either in a keynote speech, or in his audio compilations) and I didn’t find it, so if you know where it’s from please let me know 😀
Chase Greene: “You can have something that is truly great, but if it is not familiar, people will not buy it, people will not take advantage of it, people will not enjoy it.”: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQ47FdQiYL1/
The Punk Rock MBA, particularly 8:03-12:55 where he talks about how the Internet helped the band Sleep Token go EXTREMELY viral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQGDyr7UUGU
I created a guide to compliment this episode – Exercises for developing a LEGENDARY mindset. Open the document and go to the upper left and select File, then Make a copy so you can leave notes and have your own copy of the guide 🙂
SOUND WARNING – I get pretty shouty in this episode, if you’re wearing headphones and/or driving be mindful of these timestamps: 11:13 16:27-18:13 21:32-22:09 25:27-27:19 and pretty much through to the end lol
I’m passionate about this topic. I mean, this podcast is part inspiration, part passionate rants about systems of oppression 🙂
Key points discussed in this episode:
The importance of looking forward instead of living in the past
The impact of nostalgia on our minds and emotions
Reverence for the past can be a powerful tool as long as it isn’t holding us back, and we aren’t using it as an excuse to move forward
There are plenty of applications where tried and true methods have worked and still work, but were abolished because of factors (such as greed)
Exploiting workers – slave labor used for Cobalt mining in the Republic of Congo for use in cell phones (especially newer devices) and electric vehicles:
Tuskegee Syphilis Study, a program that caused immense harm to the black community of Tuskegee. Later, President Clinton issued a public apology and The National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care at Tuskegee University was created.
European settlers and the catastrophic effect on land that was well-maintained by First Nations’ civilizations – I thought of the Three Sisters planting method and how, over time, it became less of a common practice even though it was viable and sustainable
Agricultural yields quote from PubMed Central® (PMC) – a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9288846/
THE SOLUTION:
BE INVOLVED in groups and communities
Have a clearly defined goal
Innovate without causing harm
Considerations when working on a technology, solution, construction etc – is this project:
Ethical
Collaborative
Beneficial to many
Shared
A win all around
Beneficial and not destructive
Inspiring
How to prepare for inevitable change:
Acknowledge that we often push back on change BUT we also ultimately adapt
Understand that progress is gonna happen whether we like it or not
Recognize the role we play, fight against the things that harm us and embrace the things that benefit us
As always, with all things, stick tight to our communities, help where we can, lift each other up, and stay strong, stay together through life’s ups and downs