
Hosted by Meg Tuohey · EN

Episode 94 | How to Help Someone You Love Through Addiction | John Klempner She said, you were the last person I would have put my son's life on the line and bet this would happen to. You were the most dependable person I had ever met. In this raw and redemptive episode of Wisdom Stripes, Meg Tuohey sits down with John Klempner - president of Summit Wellness Group, recovery advocate, and someone who knows firsthand what it takes to lose everything and rebuild. John had a good childhood, parents in recovery, early success in real estate and banking with 53 state licenses, and a prescription painkiller habit he believed was his medicine. He didn't know what was coming. This conversation is for anyone who loves someone in addiction and feels helpless and for anyone inside the struggle who wonders if there is a way out. 🎧 Tune in and learn: Why addiction can happen to anyone, even people with every reason not to What it felt like when John told his dad: your son is gone; I don't know who I am anymore How one woman who loved him went quietly to his family and changed everything What community, consistency, and compounding actually look like in recovery Why he now feels something close to excitement when a hardship arrives If someone you love is struggling, this episode will help you understand what they are living inside. And if you are the one struggling, this one is for you. 💚 💡 Featured Resources: Summit Wellness Group: thesummitwellnessgroup.com | Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesummitwellnessgroup?utm_source=qr Follow John: @JohnKlempner on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/johnklempner?utm_source=qr 📚 HeartPrint by Meg Tuohey Order now at yourheartprint.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 93 | How Healing Actually Happens, One Percent at a Time | Meg Tuohey Nobody was coming for me. And when I finally knew that, I knew I had to be the one. This episode is different. I am not in the interviewer's chair. My dear colleague and coach Deb Erickson turned the tables and interviewed me, and I said yes because I believe that if Wisdom Stripes is going to ask others to tell the truth about their journey, I have to be willing to tell mine. In this conversation I share, for the first time on this platform, where I really came from. The trauma I lived through. The years of weekly trauma work that rebuilt me from the ground up. The little girl watching through a car window at another family gathering for dinner. The moment I understood that nobody was coming and what I decided to do with that. I also share what has grown from that pain: the mission behind Wisdom Stripes, the eight-year community at Making Relationships Work, the HeartPrint book that has been years in the making, and why I believe healing happens not in one great leap but one percent at a time. 🎧 Tune in and hear: What I mean when I say I have experienced or witnessed every type of abuse there is Three years of weekly trauma work, sponsored by a victims of crime programme, and the therapist who changed my life The moment at around age 12 where I decided: one day I will be the person that comes Why I believe the pain body is not your enemy, it is the fuel The law of similarity: the piece of wisdom I want you to walk away with most If you are in a painful place right now, borrow my story. Borrow Deb's heart. We are here for you. 💚 💡 Resources mentioned: Making Relationships Work: megantuohey.com HeartPrint by Meg Tuohey: yourheartprint.com 📚 HeartPrint by Meg Tuohey Order now at yourheartprint.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 92 | What Working Mothers Get Wrong About Having It All | Desiree Shank No one is coming to save you. And when you know that, you figure it out really quickly. In this energising and surprisingly tender episode of Wisdom Stripes, Meg Tuohey sits down with Desiree Shank, one of Shopify's first US hires, early digital commerce pioneer, TikTok shop strategist, and solo mum who built an entirely remote digital agency before remote work was a concept anyone had heard of. She brought her kids to board meetings in the Trans-American Building in Chicago. She homeschooled them through every pivot. And she figured it all out one yes at a time. This is a conversation about designing your life when the odds are against you, and what you give up when you spend too long moving millions of miles a minute. 🎧 Tune in and learn: How Desiree built a remote digital agency as a solo mum before remote work existed What it was like being one of Shopify's first US hires, and riding the rocket ship from day one Why TikTok live shopping is the next frontier, and how to get started with one product What she would tell her younger self: enjoy the moment more How she raised two entrepreneurial kids by treating them as part of the team from the start You can design your life. No matter what odds are stacked against you. This episode is proof. 💚 💡 Featured Resources: TikTok shop community: socialcollective.io Follow Desiree: @DesireeShank on Instagram and LinkedIn 📚 HeartPrint by Meg Tuohey Order now at yourheartprint.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 91 | How to Help Your Dyslexic Child Build Confidence | Dr. Rebecca Troy The science of how to support a dyslexic child has existed for 40 years. Most parents have never been told it exists. In this powerful episode of Wisdom Stripes, Meg Tuohey sits down with Dr. Rebecca Troy, nationally board-certified teacher, neuroscience and literacy researcher, and founder of a framework that rewires how children with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia learn. Both of Dr. Troy's own children have dyslexia. Using 10 to 15 minutes a night, her daughter moved from struggling to winning the reading award at the end of her school year. That result is what she now teaches other families to replicate at home. This conversation is for every parent who has ever felt the system wasn't listening, and who is ready to take the work into their own hands. 🎧 Tune in and learn: What dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia actually are, and what's happening in the brain Why 90% of special educators say they are not confident teaching a child to read How the brain can fully reorganize within a 16-week period, even in adults What to do when teachers and pediatricians tell you not to worry How to advocate for your child in an IEP meeting without destroying the relationship You know your child best. This episode gives you the science to back what you already sense. 💚 💡 Featured Resources: Free 45-minute webinar + screening tools, connect with Dr. Troy online for details 📚 HeartPrint by Meg Tuohey Order now at yourheartprint.com Connect with Meg: @megtuoheyofficial | @wisdomstripespodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 90| How to Stop Doing It All Alone and Start Asking for Help with Mina Elias You only fail when you quit. And if you never quit, you'll never fail. In this high-energy, deeply practical episode of Wisdom Stripes, Meg Tuohey sits down with Mina Elias, a multiple seven-figure entrepreneur, MMA fighter, founder of Trivium Group (one of the top Amazon advertising agencies in the world), and one of the most systematic thinkers you will ever hear. Born in Egypt, raised in Abu Dhabi, and forged by moving to Connecticut with a scholarship, $20K in student debt, and no one to ask for help, Mina built his way from chemical engineer to e-commerce empire through one principle: find someone who has been there, done that, and follow the plan. This episode is a masterclass in how to build systems for every area of your life and why asking for help is the highest-leverage move most people refuse to make. 🎧 Tune in and learn: The 11-category life system Mina uses to close the gap between where he is and where he wants to be Why ready, fire, aim and 1% better every day are not just sayings but actual operating principles How to hire an expert in something you don't know and not get burned What to do when a vendor, partner, or employee is underperforming and leveraging the relationship to stay Why integrity is the one thing that compounds forever learned from his grandfather, a general who refused every bribe If you know exactly where you're going, the way there gets 10 times easier. This episode will help you get clear. 💚 💡 Featured Resources: Trivium Group: triviumco.com Follow Mina: @TheMinaElias on Instagram YouTube: Mina Elias 📚 HeartPrint by Meg Tuohey Order now at yourheartprint.com Connect with Meg: @megtuoheyofficial | @wisdomstripespodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 89 | The Betrayal That Was Alchemized Into Art Forgiveness doesn't make what they did right. It sets you free. In this rich, moving, and at times jaw-dropping episode of Wisdom Stripes, Meg Tuohey sits down with Tracey Yarad, award-winning songwriter, jazz vocalist, composer, and creator of the one-woman show All These Pretty Things. Tracey has had more than one life: a tumultuous first marriage to a man 17 years her senior who designed the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's costumes, seven years as a celibate meditator in a white sari, a 23-year marriage that ended when her husband left her for their goddaughter, and a solo move to Brooklyn with a dog named Billy Ray and a bag of music to write. Her show has toured Edinburgh Fringe, London, Manchester, and Adelaide. Her wisdom is something else entirely. 🎧 Tune in and learn: Why forgiveness is sometimes a single moment, sometimes a process, and sometimes a choice you have to make over and over How seven years of celibate Raja Yoga meditation gave her a new way of being in the world and why she came back What gaslighting looks like when you're deep inside it and love someone How creativity becomes the container for the things words can't hold What she did when she had nothing left and why laughter was part of the answer Whatever it takes to get through the darkness, this episode will help you find it. 💚 💡 Featured Resources: Follow Tracey: @TraceyYarad on Instagram All These Pretty Things, tour dates and show info via Instagram Australian tour: February 2026, Adelaide Fringe and Blue Mountains Tracey's Shows: - Hollywood Fringe at the The Actors Company Theatre June 25th, 27th and 28th.- New York (The Australian Theatre Festival) September 28 to October 4, 2026, held at Theatre Row on 42nd Street in New York City. Tickets here: https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/12741?tab=details 📚 HeartPrint by Meg Tuohey Order now at yourheartprint.com Connect with Meg: @megtuoheyofficial | @wisdomstripespodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 88 | He Built a 10 Billion Dollar Company. At 47 He Still Can't See the Road to Love. | Nick Sansone When you win, give the credit to the team. When you lose, the first person you look at is yourself. In this grounded and deeply generous episode of Wisdom Stripes, Meg Tuohey sits down with Nick Sansone, principal at Sansone Group, one of the top real estate development firms in the United States. With 60 million square feet in its portfolio and close to $10 billion in total value, Nick's firm didn't get there through ego. It got there through humility, hard work, faith, a round boardroom table with no head, and a Sicilian grandfather who once had a fruit stand. This conversation is about what it actually means to lead people with integrity, and what happens when you don't. 🎧 Tune in and learn: Why humble leadership isn't about getting it right, it's about owning it when you don't How Nick's family went from stealing coal to heat the house to building a billion-dollar portfolio The vacant warehouse with terrible soil that became their industrial pivot, and why they did it anyway What happens when three equal principals have to make decisions together, every day Why faith is the backstop of everything, and how it carries you through the dark without answers Humility doesn't hold you back. It elevates you. This episode is proof. 💡 Featured Resources: Learn more about Nick: nickgsansone.com Sansone Group: sansonegroup.com 📚 HeartPrint by Meg Tuohey Order now at yourheartprint.com Connect with Meg: @megtuoheyofficial | @wisdomstripespodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 87 | How Storytelling Heals: A Screenwriter's Journey Through Loss and Forgiveness | Simbi Hall What if the stories we tell on screen are actually the stories we need to heal within ourselves? In this raw, layered, and quietly extraordinary episode of Wisdom Stripes, Meg Tuohey sits down with Simbi Hall, screenwriter, director, producer, and storyteller whose work spans film, television, and live shows, including the Academy Awards red carpet. Simbi joined this conversation days after losing her father and her aunt in the same week, while her mother was in the ER. She recorded it anyway, because she had something to say. This conversation is about grief, storytelling, forgiveness, community, and the radical act of staying soft when life tries to make you hard. 🎧 Tune in and learn: What it means to catch yourself hardening and why staying soft is the braver choice Why storytelling is how we get to world peace and comedy is how we let it in Sometimes your biological family is just relatives and that distinction can set you free How directing live TV and directing grief require the same skill set Is what I'm about to do creating peace, or the opposite? The question that changes everything. Have the coffee. Get the hug. Ask for what you need. This one will stay with you. 💚 💡 Featured Resources: Follow Simbi: @simbihall on Instagram Watch her film, Long Story Short: https://watch.afi.com/movie/long-story-short-4 📚 HeartPrint by Meg Tuohey Order now at yourheartprint.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

EPISODE 86 | Your Body Already Knows How to Heal. Here's the Science Behind It. | Dr. Joy Kong What if your body already knows how to heal, and medicine has just been getting in the way? In this fascinating episode of Wisdom Stripes, Meg Tuohey sits down with Dr. Joy Kong, a UCLA-trained, triple board-certified physician in psychiatry, addiction medicine, and anti-aging and regenerative medicine. Dr. Kong is the president of Chara Health in Los Angeles, founder of the American Academy of Integrative Cell Therapy, and a 73rd-generation descendant of Confucius. She has dedicated her career to one question: what would medicine look like if we actually tried to heal people? This conversation moves from stem cells and mesenchymal therapy to peptides, ozone, ketamine, and the mental health system Dr. Kong herself was caught inside, maxed out on Prozac in medical school, now off all antidepressants for years. 🎧 Tune in and learn: What stem cell therapy actually is, and why your body already has the tools to regenerate Why autoimmune conditions, long COVID, and chronic illness respond so well to this approach The 9/11 responder who was told he was dying, and what happened after three sessions What peptides actually do and why over 30 are now used in Dr. Kong's clinic How ketamine therapy helps the brain rewire trauma, explained in plain language Your body is a gift. This episode is an invitation to start treating it like one. 💚 💡 Featured Resources: 🧬 Chara Health: charahealth.com 📖 Tiger of Beijing, Dr. Kong's memoir 📚 HeartPrint by Meg Tuohey Order now at yourheartprint.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 85 | How to Build Resilience When You Have Nothing to Start With with Rich Robledo Eyes up. Keep going. Life is going to punch you. What matters is what you do next. In this grounded, energizing episode of Wisdom Stripes, Meg Tuohey sits down with Rich Robledo, entrepreneur, real estate broker, community leader, and founder of both the Robledo Group and Cigars and Conversation, a networking hub that has brought together business minds from across the country, including the Governor of Nevada. Rich grew up with a teenage mother and an absent alcoholic father, navigated the 2008 recession without a safety net, and built a life and a career around one simple principle: if you've done well, you have an obligation to do good. This conversation is warm, practical, and deeply human. It is about resilience, connection, mentorship, and what it really means to show up every day when showing up is hard. 🎧 Tune in and learn: What eyes up actually means, and how to find the helpers when you feel alone Why resilience is a muscle, not a stock, and how to build more of it The art of the phone call, the thank you note, and why connection is a skill we have to practice Why a non-decision is still a decision, and what avoidance is really costing you Don't let your imagination be your limitation: how new rooms change what you think is possible Take the punch. Take your breath. Lift your eyes. Look for the helpers. 💚 💡 Featured Resources: Connect with Rich: @RichRobledo | richrobledo.com Cigars and Conversation: follow Rich online for upcoming events 📚 HeartPrint by Meg Tuohey Order now at yourheartprint.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices