Podcast Summary – The Moth Radio Hour: Keep Calm and Carry On
Release Date: August 19, 2025
Host: Meg Bowles
Theme: Persevering, persisting, and going the distance through personal challenges—told through true, live stories about facing one’s fears, failures, and finding unexpected strengths.
Episode Overview
This episode of The Moth Radio Hour presents five true, deeply personal stories from storytellers who found themselves at moments of stress, pressure, and vulnerability. Their narratives—ranging from childhood obsessions and overcoming phobias, to wild nights out, climbing literal mountains, and entering the ring as a luchador—all revolve around the theme of carrying on under adversity, often with newfound insight or humor. Each tale features the signature Moth style: intimate, honest, and often funny, reminding us that resilience sometimes arrives with a laugh, a lesson, or even a loss.
Featured Stories & Key Moments
1. Sarah Johnson – The Nano Puppy Obsession
Location: Bell House in Brooklyn
Timestamp: [03:14–09:35]
Summary:
Sarah recounts becoming completely wrapped up in caring for her “Nano Puppy,” a Tamagotchi-style toy, as a child—ultimately to the point of exhaustion, lying, and anxiety over the digital dog’s virtual health.
Key Points:
- Sarah becomes obsessed with keeping her Nano Puppy alive, neglecting her own needs and lying to adults and friends to care for the toy.
- The toy’s constant needs disrupt her sleep and relationships, causing her to recognize the unhealthy attachment.
- Accidental “deaths” of Nano Puppy haunt her:
- “Every time I need to do something like human 8-year-old related, like sleep or go to school, Nano Puppy dies of neglect. And like the guilt and the devastation and the humiliation that I feel as an eight year old is frankly inappropriate.” ([03:45])
- Sarah’s parents unwittingly launder the device; in desperation, her mother suggests putting it in the freezer, but Nano Puppy survives—now “super angry.”
- During a camping trip, Sarah’s dad throws the beeping, “brain dead, angry spawn of Satan” Nano Puppy into the campfire.
Notable Quote:
“If Nano Puppy lives, I die.” — Sarah Johnson ([05:38])
“Don’t keep it going if it’s not healthy and it’s not good. And don’t try and pretend it is and just throw that thing off a damn bridge.” ([09:27])
2. Mike Malik – Bridge Inspector’s Fear of Heights
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Timestamp: [10:39–16:58]
Summary:
Mike, a self-described coward when it comes to heights, shares his month-long assignment inspecting high-level bridges in Western Pennsylvania, forced to confront his deepest fear.
Key Points:
- Mike’s lifelong fear of heights is challenged when his engineering job requires him to ride in an underbridge truck bucket—sometimes 150 feet up.
- Childhood flashbacks to failed participation at birthday parties reinforce his phobia.
- The assignment is complicated by the inexperience of the safety operator, “Gary,” who admits it’s his first day.
- A mechanical failure leaves Mike and his co-worker Bernie stranded, 90 feet in the air:
- “And besides falling out of this bucket to my death, like, this is my biggest fear. We are stuck on the bucket. I go in full meltdown mode.” ([15:10])
- With encouragement, Mike steps from the bucket to safety—and gets back in again the next day.
Notable Quote:
“I learned absolutely nothing. I already knew that I belong in one place, and that’s with my feet on the ground.” — Mike Malik ([16:51])
3. Samira Sahebi – The Ring, The Jacket, and the ER
Location: Portland, OR
Timestamp: [22:00–28:13]
Summary:
Samira, a young Iranian woman acclimating to the US, recounts a misadventurous night out that leads to losing her family heirloom ring, breaking her collarbone, and a soul-searching moment in the ER with a Persian radiologist.
Key Points:
- After losing her cherished gold ring during a night out, Samira gets a drunken piggyback ride—with disastrous results: a shattered collarbone.
- The staff in the ER want to cut off her friend’s valuable jacket, but she insists they don’t—even enduring extra pain to save it.
- In a vulnerable moment, the X-ray tech recognizes her last name and realizes he knows her family, projecting cultural expectations onto her.
- “He just went from interested to, oh shit. And then he, like, looked at me up and down, and I could, like, see myself through his eyes, through these Muslim eyes. I reeked of vodka, I looked so trashy. And he just said, ‘What happened, child?’ And that cut like a knife.” ([25:34])
- The sense of shame and cultural collision catalyze an internal journey toward self-integration.
Notable Quote:
“That night, my two fragmented, intentionally separated world collapsed. They just collided. And although I lost a physical representation of my origin, I tapped into a journey of integration...” — Samira Sahebi ([27:39])
4. Beth Bradley – Climbing Mountains, Overcoming Self-Doubt
Location: Denver, CO
Timestamp: [29:27–36:08]
Summary:
At 13,700 feet, exhausted and minutes away from a safe summit window, Beth wrestles with her identity, self-doubt, and the determination to reach her first 14,000-foot mountain peak.
Key Points:
- Despite extensive training, Beth feels the weight of societal expectations about body size, fearing she doesn’t belong among “gazelles” on the mountain.
- Feelings of failure echo a disappointing cross-country move and a hard breakup.
- Her friends’ quiet faith inspires a surge of belief:
- “She came and sat down on the rock next door. And I was just letting that defeat, like, settle in. But then, totally calm, Katie said, ‘We should keep going. I know you can do it.’ So then a weird thing happened, which is that I realized I believed her.” ([33:36])
- Minutes before the noon lightning deadline, she summits—with tears and joy.
- Post-climb, Beth realizes she’s shed an internalized narrative of “who do I think I am,” replacing it with confidence and persistence.
Notable Quote:
“I was the only person who was smiling and openly weeping. I was also hugging Katie and Dawn like crazy... Crying on top of a mountain is a wonderful feeling and I’d recommend it to anyone.” — Beth Bradley ([34:26])
5. Shawn Leonardo – Becoming El Conquistador, the American Luchador
Location: Boston, MA
Timestamp: [39:26–52:49]
Summary:
Artist Shawn Leonardo brings his childhood fantasy to life by becoming a luchador in Mexico, enduring beatings, humiliation, and cultural reversal—only to find deeper meaning in defeat.
Key Points:
- Captivated by La Lucha Libre since childhood, Shawn embarks on an unlikely training adventure in Oaxaca, despite being an outsider with no wrestling experience.
- He’s put through grueling training and earns his debut match, only to be pummeled and unmasked for dramatic effect.
- Unexpectedly invited back, he’s cast—ironically—as the “good guy” American versus Sangre Azteca, the welterweight champion at Mexico City’s grandest venue.
- The match is neither scripted nor in his favor; the crowd turns on him.
- In an epic match, he takes a beating but earns fans’ affection—especially from children:
- “I bend down to greet a few kids and I feel this little pat on my shoulder. And a little boy says in my ear, ‘Si se puede, yes, you can.’ And I’m beaten. And this kid wants to believe, wants to believe that this character should keep fighting.” ([52:20])
- Shawn turns this experience into an eight-year wrestling career and an enduring lesson on loss, resilience, and hope.
Notable Quote:
“It’s not always about winning. It’s not about being the hero all the time. It’s about moving through the failures and getting up after the losses. Because as that little kid said... Sí se puede. Yes, you can. Yes, we can.” — Shawn Leonardo ([52:39])
Additional Noteworthy Segment
Bonus Quick Story – Motorcycle & Grief
Timestamp: [53:54–55:11]
A brief tale from an unnamed man who, during his father’s terminal illness, secretly buys a motorcycle and reveals it in the hospital—bringing his grieving family a moment of laughter. His father makes him promise: “always wear boots when I ride.”
Memorable Quotes & Moments
- “If Nano Puppy lives, I die.” — Sarah Johnson ([05:38])
- “We are stuck on the bucket—I go in full meltdown mode.” — Mike Malik ([15:10])
- “That cut like a knife.” — Samira Sahebi ([25:37])
- “We should keep going. I know you can do it.” — Beth Bradley’s friend Katie ([33:36])
- “Sí se puede.” — Young wrestling fan to Shawn Leonardo ([52:22])
- “It’s not about being the hero all the time. It’s about moving through the failures and getting up after the losses.” — Shawn Leonardo ([52:44])
Episode Flow & Tone
The tone is honest, open, and often humorous. Each storyteller confronts some aspect of fear, desire, or self-image—sometimes with vulnerability, sometimes with irreverent wit. Together, their stories build a tapestry of perseverance that is uniquely individual yet resonant.
Timestamps Summary
| Time | Story/Segment | Storyteller | |--------------|----------------------------------------|------------------------| | 03:14–09:35 | Nano Puppy childhood obsession | Sarah Johnson | | 10:39–16:58 | Bridge inspection & acrophobia | Mike Malik | | 22:00–28:13 | Lost ring, broken collarbone, identity | Samira Sahebi | | 29:27–36:08 | Mountain climb & self-doubt | Beth Bradley | | 39:26–52:49 | Becoming a luchador in Mexico | Shawn Leonardo | | 53:54–55:11 | Motorcycle as coping with grief | Unnamed contributor |
Conclusion
“Keep Calm and Carry On” is a celebration of persistence—not the quiet, composed kind, but the messy, often comic, and sometimes painful journey through fear, exhaustion, heartbreak, and hope. The storytellers’ voices carry humor and heartache in equal measure, reminding us that sometimes courage is just not giving up, and sometimes it’s letting go.