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

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English

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#66
July 27 · 23 min
How Chronic Devaluation Shapes Confidence, Relationships, and Ambition
What happens when nothing you accomplish ever seems to be enough? In this solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy explores the long-term impact of chronic devaluation, especially when it begins in childhood. She shares personal stories of earning straight A’s, leading teams, serving on committees, excelling in performance, and still feeling as though the finish line kept moving. When you are told to go left and then criticized for not going right, you may stop trusting your own direction. Over time, that confusion can shape your confidence, your relationships, your ambition, and your ability to fully receive your own success. This conversation explores: Why devaluation can create overachievement and overfunctioning How moving standards teach children to distrust themselves Why accomplished adults may still struggle to feel successful How early devaluation can affect romantic and professional relationships The difference between creating from self-expression and performing for approval How to receive feedback without turning it into a verdict on your worth Devaluation did not stop Lisa from becoming a leader, performer, entrepreneur, writer, and creator. She accomplished it anyway. But the deeper work is learning to accomplish without still carrying the need to prove that she deserves to be valued. What have you spent your life accomplishing in the hope that someone would finally recognize your value? And what might you create next if you no longer needed their permission? Welcome to the Edge. www.lisalacy.com Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#65
July 27 · 44 min
Clawing Back From the Bottom with Bryan Blackmon
Bryan Blackmon left Texas for California chasing a dream. Instead, he found himself homeless, sleeping in his car, and drowning in alcohol and addiction. Then an elderly landlord named Elaine chose not to give up on him. Her belief became a turning point, but Bryan still had to do the work of becoming someone he could believe in, too. Today, Bryan is sober, a recovery advocate, transformation coach, and the creator of Crab Crew Life, a community built around recovery, resilience, adaptability, accountability, and belief. Bryan says the crab does not swim. It does not fly. It claws its way forward from the bottom of the ocean floor. And so did he. In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Bryan and Lisa explore: • What homelessness and addiction look like from the inside • The difference between getting sober and rebuilding your identity • Why redemption is not a moment, but a daily routine • The ordinary habits that restore dignity and self-respect • How one person’s belief can help rewrite a life • Why community can carry us when willpower is no longer enough • Who we become when survival is no longer our only identity This is a conversation about second chances, accountability, human connection, and the courage required to keep clawing forward when life has taken you all the way to the bottom. Learn more about Bryan Blackmon and Crab Crew Life: https://crabcrewlife.com Learn more about Lisa Lacy: https://www.lisalacy.com Welcome to the edge. Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#64
July 27 · 12 min
I Was Wounded… and Slightly Feral
It is exactly midnight, I am editing Notes From a Certified Madwoman, and I have finally realized something: Maybe I was never crazy. Maybe I was wounded, dysregulated, surviving, and just slightly feral. In this solo episode of Midnight Menopausal Meanderings, I talk about what happens when trauma is mistaken for personality, survival responses are reduced to mental illness, and the context of a person’s life disappears beneath the diagnosis. This is not an argument against therapy, psychiatry, medication, recovery, or mental health treatment. Those things save lives, including mine. It is an invitation to ask a fuller question. Not only: What is wrong with you? But also: What happened to you? I also share why some details were intentionally left out of my book, why telling the whole truth can sometimes bring consequences from the very people who benefited from your silence, and why this book is not an attempt to explain or defend myself. It is an exploration of what happens when we forget that context matters. Because trauma may explain behavior without excusing harm. Because a diagnosis may describe symptoms without telling the whole story. And because sometimes the woman everyone called crazy was carrying more than one nervous system should ever have had to carry alone. Notes From a Certified Madwoman is coming Fall 2026. Welcome to the edge. www.lisalacy.com Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#63
July 27 · 38 min
WATCH ME with Renee Carbone Fleming
The Price of Waiting for Permission and the Power of Becoming Visible Anyway What happens when a woman stops waiting to feel confident, stops explaining every decision, and starts building the life she knows she is capable of creating? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with award-winning entrepreneur, author, podcast host, and founder of the Badass Queen™ movement, Renee Carbone Fleming. Renee filed for bankruptcy. Her marriage ended. She found herself rebuilding from the ground up and made a two-word decision that would shape everything that followed: Watch me. That decision became a philosophy, a movement, and the foundation of the WATCH ME Method™, Renee’s five-principle operating system for women who are done seeking permission, shrinking their ambitions, and waiting for approval before taking action. Renee went on to build a direct-sales organization that generated more than $13 million, lead a team of over 400 people, create a multimillion-dollar brand empire, publish three books, launch the Unapologetically Badass podcast, and see her brand featured on the NASDAQ billboard in Times Square. In this bold and honest conversation, Lisa and Renee explore: • What reinvention really looks like before the success story becomes polished • Why overexplaining quietly weakens a woman’s authority • The hidden emotional and financial cost of waiting for approval • Why confidence is the result of execution, not the requirement for it • How women can become visible before they feel completely ready • What Renee had to survive, release, and rebuild between bankruptcy and success • How to stop asking others to approve the future you are creating This is a conversation for every woman who has ever known she was capable of more but kept waiting for permission to prove it. Connect with Renee Carbone Fleming: https://badassqueen.co Connect with Lisa Lacy: https://www.lisalacy.com Welcome to the edge. Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#62
July 26 · 26 min
People Were More Comfortable With My Suffering When I Carried It Quietly
Female Anger, Menopause, and What Happens When the Manageable Woman Disappears People celebrate strong women until those women get angry, set boundaries, stop apologizing, or remove access. In this episode of Midnight Menopausal Meanderings, Lisa Lacy explores female anger, menopause, nervous-system overload, and what happens when the emotionally manageable woman begins to disappear. Menopause may not create a new, irrational woman. It may reveal the woman who spent decades swallowing betrayal, exhaustion, grief, emotional labor, and uncomfortable truths to keep everyone else comfortable. This conversation also holds the harder truth: anger can carry important information, but justified rage can still cause harm. Trauma explains behavior. It does not excuse it. Healing is not about silencing anger or worshipping it. It is about learning to hold truth without destruction, boundaries without cruelty, and power without abandoning our humanity. This episode draws from Lisa’s upcoming book, Notes of a Certified Madwoman, an exploration of trauma, survival, identity, nervous-system adaptation, and the women we became in order to survive. Who benefited from the version of you who carried her suffering quietly? Welcome to the edge. www,lisalacy.com Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#61
July 25 · 44 min
The Last Rocketman: Fear Is Information Not Instruction with Dan Schlund
What happens when the thing that made you feel most alive nearly kills you? “Rocketman” Dan Schlund is one of the last professionally trained Rocketbelt pilots in the world. For a decade, he flew jet packs at events across 25 countries and six continents, performing hundreds of flights without a parachute and with only seconds of fuel strapped to his back. But Dan’s most extraordinary story began after the spectacle ended. Following devastating burns, extensive skin-graft surgeries, and a crash that left him with a broken neck, Dan lost far more than his ability to fly. He lost his income, his marriage, and the identity he had built around being the Rocketman. He also became dependent on pain medication and had to rebuild his life from the ground up. Dan eventually founded National Set Medics, growing it into a multimillion-dollar company that provides medical professionals for film and television productions nationwide. Ten years after his final flight, he purchased the Rocketbelt and training hangar and returned to the air one more time for his memoir and documentary, The Last Rocketman. In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy and Dan explore: • What happens when your identity disappears overnight • The difference between courage and fearlessness • How the nervous system responds after catastrophic injury • Addiction, recovery, and the invisible work behind a comeback • Calculated risk and decision-making under pressure • Why Dan believes fear is information, not instruction • What it took to strap the Rocketbelt on one final time Dan’s message is not that we should become fearless. It is that courage can be practiced, preparation can change our relationship with fear, and our worst experience does not have to become our final one. Learn more about Dan, his book, and the documentary: https://rocketman.tv/ Learn more about Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge: https://www.lisalacy.com/ Welcome to the Edge. Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#60
July 24 · 23 min
When Your Diagnosis Enters the Room Before You Do
Psychiatric labels, medical dismissal, and what happens when a human being becomes paperwork What happens when a provider sees your psychiatric history before they truly see you? In this deeply personal solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy explores the dangerous gap between being treated as a medically complex human being and being reduced to “the psychiatric patient.” Drawing from her lived experience inside mental health facilities, jail, addiction recovery, emergency rooms, and repeated life-threatening medical crises, Lisa examines how quickly dignity, autonomy, and credibility can disappear once a diagnosis enters the room. This episode explores institutionalization, medical gaslighting, hospital trauma, psychiatric bias, and the devastating consequences of being labeled emotional instead of symptomatic, anxious instead of endangered, and crazy instead of sick. It also offers an early look into Lisa’s forthcoming memoir, Notes From a Certified Madwoman, releasing in October. Part memoir, part cultural critique, and part nervous-system conversation, the book asks a question that could change how we understand trauma and mental illness: What if the diagnosis was sometimes describing survival? Mental illness should never cancel physical illness. A psychiatric record should never erase a patient’s credibility. Institutionalization should never require the surrender of human dignity. Learn more about Lisa, the podcast, and her upcoming work at: https://lisa-lacy.com Notes From a Certified Madwoman releases in October. See you at the edge. Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#59
July 24 · 22 min
What the Hell is Love?
What happens when you grow up without hearing “I love you,” without being held, and without learning what safe, enduring affection feels like? In this deeply personal solo episode of Midnight Menopausal Meanderings, I explore the difference between loving someone and knowing how to experience love. My parents never told me they loved me. My father wrote the words in letters I would not open until decades later, after he died. My mother never said them. I learned touch through violation rather than comfort, and when I became a mother, I had to consciously teach myself how to hug my daughter and say, “I love you.” For years, I believed love meant providing. I became the financial provider, the problem-solver, the rescuer, and eventually a workaholic driven by survival. Now, with the help of transformational coach Steve Barton, I am exploring a different idea: Love can be wisdom. Love can be trust. And love can simply be love. We also talk about menopause, the disappearing bullshit filter, and the challenge of setting boundaries that are loving, direct, and final. Because you can love someone, understand them, forgive them, and still decide they no longer have access to you. This next chapter is not about performing love. It is about finally learning what love feels like when it does not require self-abandonment. What did you perform in order to survive? Learn more at lisalacy.com See you at the edge. Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#58
July 24 · 37 min
The Competence Trap with Loren Silverman
Burnout, Boundaries, and Why the Most Capable Person in the Room May Be Closest to the Edge What happens when competence becomes a survival strategy? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with life coach and former technology leader Loren Silverman for an honest conversation about burnout, overthinking, boundaries, self-abandonment, and the hidden cost of always being the capable one. After nearly two decades working in technology, program management, and digital transformation, Loren realized that the part of his career that mattered most was not the technology. It was helping the people behind it. He also recognized a difficult truth: persistence can look admirable from the outside while quietly costing us our satisfaction, health, and connection to ourselves. Today, Loren is the founder of Silverman Coach and the creator of Life Reboot: Nerd Edition, a coaching experience for nerds, geeks, overthinkers, and overwhelmed professionals who are ready to trade chaos for clarity, build meaningful boundaries, and finally follow through on what matters. Together, Lisa and Loren explore why the most capable person in the room may also be the person closest to the edge, how competence becomes a performance, and why real transformation is often built through small, repeatable choices rather than dramatic overhauls. They also discuss the difference between persistence and self-abandonment, the role values play in decision-making, and what it takes to stop treating yourself like a problem that needs to be optimized. Learn more about Loren Silverman and Silverman Coach: http://silverman.coach Learn more about Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge: https://www.lisalacy.com Welcome to the edge. Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#57
July 23 · 53 min
Before the First Hit with Dave Kopeny
How Parents Can Recognize Risk, Interrupt Addiction, and Become Their Child’s Strongest Protective ForceEvery parent wants to believe their child will know how to recognize danger, make the right decision, and walk away when drugs enter the picture.But today’s drug landscape is more accessible, potent, and aggressively marketed than many families realize. By the time a parent knows something is wrong, the problem may already be much larger than anyone understood.In this episode of Notes From the
#56
July 23 · 46 min
Who Got You Here Won't Get You There
Jim Hughes on Identity, Fear, Self-Judgment, and Becoming the Person Beneath the PerformanceThe person who got you here may have been exactly who you needed to become.The achiever. The problem-solver. The founder who never stops moving. The leader who learned how to carry the pressure, meet the expectations, and become whatever the moment required.But what happens when that identity begins keeping you from where you want to go next?In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with
#55
July 23 · 47 min
When Leadership Stops Developing People with Dr. Katie Trowbridge
Curiosity, Compliance, and Teams That Think.Why do capable, intelligent teams stop taking initiative?Sometimes it is not because people are lazy, disengaged, or unwilling to contribute. Sometimes they have learned that following directions is safer than asking questions, challenging assumptions, or offering an original idea.In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with Dr. Katie Trowbridge, an award-winning educator, TEDx speaker, leadership strategist, author, and CEO of Curi
#54
July 22 · 59 min
When Compassion Is Not Enough
What happens when someone you love is in crisis, refuses help, and waiting for them to become “ready” may cost them their life?In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with attorney, former prosecutor, and family crisis advocate Mark Astor for a necessary and deeply human conversation about addiction, severe mental illness, involuntary treatment, family trauma, and the difficult line between compassion and enabling.Mark is a partner at Astor Simovitch Law, where he helps famil
#53
July 21 · 48 min
The Confidence Beneath the Craving
Addiction, Bipolar Disorder, and Rebuilding a Life with the S.O.B.E.R. MethodWhat happens when you remove the substance, but the pain, pressure, and survival patterns underneath it remain?In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with author, entrepreneur, podcast host, and addiction recovery advocate Massimo Rigotti for an honest conversation about addiction, bipolar disorder, grief, confidence, and the complicated work of rebuilding a life in recovery.After navigating addicti

Showing 81–94 of 94 episodes