Education

Human School

We’ve been taught everything except how to be human. In a world obsessed with output, Human School is where we study what happens within.

Hosted by Miles Adcox, this podcast was born from a journal entry during a breakdown –– a reminder that struggle isn’t weakness; it’s instruction. Through raw conversations with world-class experts, therapists, and thinkers, Human School reframes pain as purpose, productivity as presence, and leadership as inner clarity.

If you are navigating personal growth, emotional health, and self-discovery, you are in the right place.

Welcome to Human School.

Latest Episodes:

Kathleen Murphy: What It Means to Come Home to Yourself Mar 23, 2026

Show notes

If something in this episode resonated, it might be worth a conversation. Onsite offers intensive workshops near Nashville and San Diego for people navigating burnout, trauma, relationships, and addiction. One free call with their team can help you find the right fit. Visit ⁠experienceonsite.com⁠ or call 1-800-341-7432.

Have you ever been so buried in survival that you couldn't feel your own worth?

What if everything you survived was quietly shaping you into exactly the person someone else needs?

Kathleen Murphy, M.A., LMFT, LPC, is one of the most respected trauma clinicians in the field. Before that, she was homeless, addicted, and living on the streets with a one-year-old daughter, cycling through fourteen treatment programs before her life changed.

She opens up about her childhood trauma and how it stuck with her, growing up as "a sin" in her mother's eyes, and what it felt like to be "symbolically annihilated." She reveals how Viktor Frankl’s book, a newspaper found on the street, and a shelter bed that arrived two weeks instead of six months later changed everything — and how those experiences became the foundation for the way she teaches today. She goes deep on why our hearts are like music, how we tune each other back to the key of life, and what it really means to stop arguing with reality.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

How to Find Your "Heart Home" and Why It Changes Everything
How Suffering Becomes Your Greatest Gift to Others
How to Stop Arguing With Reality and What Changes When You Do
How to Tell the Difference Between a Boundary and Reaching Your Limit
How Borrowing Someone's Eyes Dissolves Conflict Without Losing Your Voice
How to Tune Your Heart Back to the Key of Life
How to Help Someone Without Giving Advice
How to Wake Up From a Trance of Unworthiness
How to Hear Someone New Even If They've Told You the Same Thing Before
How to Let Your Mess Become Your Message

Follow Human School:

YouTube - ⁠⁠Human School Podcast⁠⁠

Instagram - ⁠⁠@humanschoolofficial⁠⁠

Threads - ⁠⁠@humanschoolofficial⁠⁠

TikTok - ⁠⁠@humanschoolofficial⁠

For anyone who missed it or wants a replay, this episode is back in your feed!

What We Discuss:

00:00:00 – Meet Kathleen Murphy

00:03:15 – Kathleen’s Onsite Story: a leap of faith and right timing

00:05:45 –Our hearts are more like music than machines

00:07:50 – A "heart home" and where you flourish

00:08:57 – The ocean, the storm, and the nature of the mind

00:10:30 – How to know if you're in wellness

00:13:00 – Who are you beyond your roles and your story?

00:22:04 –Learning to receive love

00:30:19 – Symbolic annihilation

00:32:55 – July 27th, 1983

00:35:21 – Standing in a courtroom at age six

00:39:25 – The moment love broke through on the streets

00:47:08 – Stepping into full surrender

00:55:13 – A book and borrowed courage

00:59:30 – The Message on the wall & the right to be angry

01:04:08 – The Wires are Crossed: Danger & Safety

01:20:15 – New vulnerability: saying the scary thing out loud

01:24:34 – There’s clinical language…then there’s conversational language

01:29:14 – Trauma becomes the goal

01:31:56 – The tool that dissolves arguments

01:35:10 – Kathleen’s tool on how to hear someone like it's the first time

01:37:35 – Words to take with you

Chandler Moore: You Can't Heal What You Won't Let Anyone See Mar 11, 2026

Show notes

With campuses near Nashville and San Diego, Onsite supportspeople navigating burnout, relationship strain, addiction, trauma, or the sense that life feels off. Learn more at experienceonsite.com or call 1-800-341-7432. A simple conversation can be the first step toward living more fully.

Have you ever carried a secret so heavy it started to collapse everything around you?

What if the most honest thing you ever did was also thebravest — and changed everyone watching?

Five-time Grammy winner Chandler Moore has led worship formillions, but behind the music was a story he hadn't told anyone. In this episode, Chandler opens up about childhood trauma, addiction, 40 days in inpatient treatment, and the therapeutic disclosure that changed his marriage and his life. He reveals how recovery is reshaping his new music, why safetywas his most important discovery, and how his biggest frustrations turned out to be his calling.

Chandler goes deep into trusting your own reality, holdingtwo opposing truths, and finally stopping the performance, and how being the first in his family to do this work is now rippling into his kids, friendships, and art.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

How to Recognize That Safety Is the Foundation of AllHealing
How to Find the Ember When You Feel Like the Fire Is Gone
How Vulnerability Becomes a Gift Instead of a Performance
How to Stop Testing the Waters and Start Telling Your Truth
How Your Authenticity Has an Audience and How to Find It
How "Playing to One" Helps You Connect WithThousands
How to Debrief What You Consume So It Doesn't Consume You
How Owning Your Story Changes the People Watching You
How to Hold Two Opposite Truths at the Same Time
How to Move From Inspiring People to Actually Impacting Them

Follow Human School:

YouTube - Human School Podcast

Instagram - @humanschoolofficial

Threads - @humanschoolofficial

TikTok - @humanschoolofficial

What We Discuss:

00:00:00 - Meet Chandler Moore

00:02:15 - Why This Podcast Felt Like the Right First Step

00:03:24 - Chandler's First Experience at Onsite

00:07:20 - There's Always More Truth Than You Think You'reReady to Tell

00:09:07 - Miles’s Treatment Journey and the Origin of HumanSchool

00:11:50 - How Recovery Transformed Chandler's CreativeProcess

00:15:00 - Being the First in His Family to Go to Therapy

00:19:33 - Finding Safe People

00:24:24 - The Mirror Moment

00:33:09 - Therapeutic Disclosure: The Moment Things Changed

00:36:15 - Embers: How to Find Your Fire When You FeelNothing

00:39:39 - Vulnerability Is Not for Sale

00:45:00 - Holding Two Things as True

00:49:09 - The Heartbeat of Faith

00:53:48 - How to Offload What You Consume Without BurningOut

01:01:36 - The Cycle of Touring Artists

01:07:38 - Mom's Letter

01:17:05 - Chandler’s New Project

01:19:42 - How Recovery Changed Chandler as a Father

01:34:09 - The Johnny Cash Approach to Connection

01:39:26 - Doubling: How Onsite Helped Reconstruct His Story

01:43:11 - Stand in Your Divinity

01:45:49 - The New Kind of Altar Call and Who It's ReallyFor

Hunter Hayes: Chasing My Version of The Dream Mar 04, 2026

Show notes

With campuses near Nashville and San Diego,Onsite supports people navigating burnout, relationship strain, addiction, trauma, or the sense that life feels off. Learn more at experienceonsite.com or call 1-800-341-7432. A simple conversation can be the first step toward livingmore fully.
What if the music you've been making your whole life was actually the therapy you never knew you needed?

What if chasing someone else's version of success is the very thing keeping you from discovering who you actually are?

Hunter Hayes has been on stages since he was a toddler. He earned Grammy nominations before most people have figured out what they want to do with their lives. He toured with Taylor Swift, scored radio hits, and built the kind of career that looks flawless from the outside. But behind all of it was a kid whofelt deeply lonely, who learned early that love and acceptance were things you earned by performing, and who spent years chasing a version of success that someone else had defined for him.

In this episode, Hunter goes into the emotional terrain behind his music: the relationship between performance and belonging, the cost of tying your identity to external validation from the time you're five years old, and what it feels like when early success levels off and you must decide who you are. Hereveals how years of therapy, intensive work, and learning to understand his brain finally gave him permission to stop performing his life and start participating in it. He shares the moment that songwriting stopped being about writing hits and became therapy set to a melody.

What makes this conversation unique is that Hunter and Miles don't just talk about the destination, they walk through the actual work. This is a conversation about what it looks like to come back to yourself after years of giving yourself away and how creativity, when it's rooted in honesty rather than performance, can become the most powerful tool for healing you've ever had.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

How to Use Songwriting, Journaling, or Any Creative Outlet as a Form of Emotional Processing
How to Rebuild Your Identity When Your Career Has Always Been Your Entire Senseof Self
How to Redefine Success So the Numbers Stop Running Your Life
How to Invite Your Inner Child Back Into Your Creative Process Instead of Locking Him Out
How to Protect Your Energy on Social Media Without Disappearing
How to Find the People in Your Life Who See You for Who You Are, Not Just What You Produce
How to Use Structure, Checklists, and Consistency as Mental Health Tools
How to Write About Where You Want to Be Before You've Arrived There
How to Be Proud of Yourself Out Loud Even When the Road Looked Messy From the Outside

Follow Human School: YouTube - Human School Podcast Instagram - @humanschoolofficial Threads - @humanschoolofficial TikTok - @humanschoolofficial

What We Discuss:

00:00:00 Welcome to Human School00:02:30 Why Hunter Spent 10 Years Chasing Someone Else's Version of the Dream00:05:00 What's Different About Hunter Today00:06:35 How an Onsite Intensive Became a Turning Point00:08:28 The Music That Taught Hunter He Had Permission to Write With Hope00:12:55 Music at Two Years Old and a Career No One Planned00:34:07 The Move to Music City from Louisiana00:43:15 Songwriting Became His Version of Journaling00:46:58 The Loneliness That Hid Inside an Idealistic Childhood00:56:25 The Sentence That Shattered Him at 1501:02:40 Letting the Inner Child Back Into the Creative Work01:05:30 Transactional and Purely Relational Friendships01:16:12 Storm Warning, Dan Huff, and the Radio Tour That Changed Everything01:26:48 Navigating Life After the Biggest Season of Early Success01:32:50 Why He Started Talking Openly About Mental Health01:39:46 Learning to Fly and the Life Metaphors Hidden Inside Every Pre-Flight Checklist01:48:04 The New Project: Evergreen Season One01:53:40 How Hunter Manages Social Media Without Letting It Manage Him

Dr. Neil Bomar: Why Small "Paper Cuts" Do More Damage Than Big Injuries Feb 25, 2026

Show notes

Learn more about Onsite and Milestones at experienceonsite.com or call 1-800-341-7432. A simple conversation can be the first step toward living more fully.

What if the wounds you can't name are doing more damage than the ones you can?

What if healing doesn't happen in a sterile office, but around a campfire, in a community, or on a paddleboard?

Dr. Neil Bomar, Vice President of Medical Services at Milestones, is not your typical psychiatrist. He's a man who spent years trying to fit inside the box of Western medicine before realizing the box wasn't right for him. He traded the "treat 'em and street 'em" model of traditional medicine for a radically human approach to psychiatry. An approach that blends neuroscience, experiential therapy, and the healing power of nature and genuine connection.

In this conversation, Dr. Bomar opens up about his own "death day," the childhood moment that quietly rewired how he moved through the world. He shares what it was like to discover, well into his career, that his infectious enthusiasm and relentless positivity were, in part, a defense mechanism against pain. He goes deep into the surreal Thanksgiving when a bullet fell from the sky, struck him in the nose, and lodged in his cheek. And why, even then, his developmental wounding left the deeper mark.

Miles and Dr. Bomar explore the dangerous myth that you must choose between brokenness and resilience, the subtle harm of toxic positivity, and why leading with your highlight reel is the fastest way to kill real intimacy. They introduce frameworks like "death days," event trauma versus developmental wounding, and angel work, making complex psychological concepts feel like something you'd hear from a trusted friend.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

How to Tell the Difference Between Event Trauma and Developmental Wounding
How to Stop Weaponizing Your Story and Start Letting It Work For You
How to Recognize Your "Death Day"
How Toxic Positivity Can Be Just as Damaging as Toxic Negativity
How Your Deepest Wound Is Often the Hidden Root of Your Greatest Strength
How to Identify the "Angels" in Your Story
How to Know When You've Crossed from Doing the Work into Over-Identifying with Your Pain
How to Choose Being Relational Over Being Right in Every Room You Enter
How Community Heals What Therapy Alone Cannot

Follow Human School:

YouTube - Human School Podcast

Instagram - @humanschoolofficial

Threads - @humanschoolofficial

TikTok - @humanschoolofficial

What We Discuss:

00:00 Meet Dr. Neil Bomar

00:04:35 Why Dr. Bomar Left Traditional Medicine Behind

00:10:01 A Western Medicine Doctor Meets Experiential Therapy

00:11:27 The Family Intensive at Onsite That Changed Everything

00:13:40 What He Learned About Sadness Growing Up

00:14:40 "Happy Jack": The Public Man, the Private Reality, and the Weight of Both

00:21:29 The "Goodness of Fit" Theory: Feeling Like an Outlier in Your Own Family

00:26:30 What Is Developmental Wounding?

00:27:30 "Death Day": The Childhood Moment That Quietly Rewires Your Identity

00:29:49 A Bullet Fell From the Sky

00:33:00 Event Trauma vs. Developmental Wounding: Which One Is Actually Harder to Heal

00:38:30 What Is Trauma, Really? Cutting Through the Expert Debate to What Actually Matters

00:44:06 What He Heard It 25 Years Too Late

00:48:57 Overcompensating From Insecurity

00:54:00 Angel Work: Identifying the People Who Saw You Before You Saw Yourself

00:57:45 The Bravest Thing a Leader Can Say

00:58:36 Leading With Your Highlight Reel vs. Your Failures

01:00:27 Over-Identifying With Your Illness: Where Healing Ends and Victimhood Begins

01:05:35 Angel Work Healing That No Playbook Could Have Predicted

01:09:07 What a Client Said About Milestones That Stopped Him Cold

01:19:09 A Question That Changes Everything - Being Right or Being Relational

01:25:51 What Miles & Dr. Bomar Into Now

01:29:58 Dr. Bomar's Parting Message to Listeners

Shawn & Andrew East: Managing High-Stakes Pressure in Every Season of Life Feb 18, 2026

Show notes

With campuses near Nashville and San Diego, Onsite supports people navigating burnout, relationship strain, addiction, trauma, or the sense that life feels off. Learn more at experienceonsite.com or call 1-800-341-7432. A simple conversation can be the first step toward living more fully.

What if the discipline that made you a champion is the same thing quietly destroying your most important relationships?

What happens when two elite athletes stop chasing gold medals and start chasing something far more meaningful — each other, their kids, and a life that actually feels like home?

Shawn Johnson East is an Olympic gold medalist and one of the most decorated gymnasts in American history. Andrew East is a former NFL long snapper, entrepreneur, and now holds a doctorate in psychology. Together, they've built a marriage, a family of three young kids, businesses, and a media platform in full public view. But what stands out in this conversation is the radical honesty they bring to the parts of their story.

In this deeply personal conversation, Shawn opens up about the dark side of elite gymnastics — going professional at 12, being trained to go emotionally numb under pressure, and how that survival skill followed her into adulthood and marriage. She reveals her years-long battle with disordered eating and how retiring from gymnastics left her without an identity. Andrew shares the performance anxiety that blindsided him and how losing football forced a painful gift that ultimately shaped everything good that came next. He also opens up about losing his father, Guy East, and how his dad's relentless curiosity modeled the kind of partner and father he's worked hard to become.

We talk about what it means to protect a marriage when the odds are stacked against you, and why commitment, not chemistry alone, is the thing that makes it last. Shawn and Andrew also share more about their upcoming book, The Courage to Commit, and how the title is the foundation of how they live their lives.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

How to Use Your Athletic Background to Build a Stronger Marriage
How Going Numb Under Pressure Creates Hardness at Home and What to Do About It
How to Navigate the Identity Crisis That Comes After Leaving a High-Performance Career
How to Recognize When Your Greatest Strength Has a Shadow Side That's Hurting the People You Love
How to Create Daily and Weekly Rhythms That Keep a Marriage Connected Without Over-Complicating It
How to Relearn How to Play, Fail, and Start Over After Reaching the Top of Your Craft
How to Use Curiosity Instead of Criticism When You Don't Understand Your Partner
How to Commit Fully to Something and Discover That Sticking With It Creates Beauty You Could Never Have Planned

Welcome to Human School, where we learn what matters most - Miles Adcox

Follow Human School:

YouTube - Human School Podcast

Instagram - @humanschoolofficial

Threads - @humanschoolofficial

TikTok - @humanschoolofficial

What We Discuss:

00:00:00 Meet Shawn and Andrew East

00:05:02 The Athletic Brain Meets Married Life

00:08:34 The Special Forces Experience

00:10:21 Going Professional at 12

00:13:26 Two Different People Behind Closed Doors

00:15:15 The Debate That Started an Honest Marriage Conversation

00:18:23 Andrew's Dad Taught Him About Curiosity

00:22:00 Having Each Other Changed What Was Possible

00:27:52 Their Marriage Game Plan Day to Day

00:37:47 What Miles Learned Watching Thousands of Couples

00:40:27 Having Kids Rewired Andrew's View of Optimization

00:44:12 Depression, Eating Disorders, and Breaking the Cycle

00:51:27 The Career He Thought Would Last 15 Years

00:56:18 How to Navigate a Major Life Transition

01:01:04 Miles's Two-Word Prayer That Got Him Through His Darkest Season

01:03:32 What The East's Are Most Excited About Right Now

Meghan Riordan Jarvis: Falling Apart as a Grief Expert & Creating What Grief Was Missing Feb 11, 2026

Show notes

If this conversation resonated, Onsite & Milestones are safe places to land and process grief. Learn more at experienceonsite.com or call 1-800-341-7432. A simple conversation can be the first step toward living more fully.

Have you ever been hit by grief so hard that it knocked you off every foundation you thought you had?

What if grief isn't a problem to be solved, but an energy inside your body that's asking to be tended? And no one ever taught you how.

Meghan Riordan Jarvis is a trauma therapist, bestselling author of the memoir End of the Hour, and the host of Grief is My Side Hustle, a podcast that has helped thousands of people feel less alone in their loss. But what makes Meghan extraordinary isn't just her clinical expertise in trauma-informed care, EMDR, and body-centered healing; it's the fact that she fell completely apart after her mother died, and had the courage to seek help as a patient in the very world she had spent her career serving.

In this conversation, Meghan opens up about losing her mother six years ago and what it felt like to arrive at a treatment program as a clinician who "knew everything." She reveals the early childhood loss that shaped her, the fury that drove her to build something new, and how a morning walk with her Episcopal priest friend changed the way she practices daily. Watch in real time as Meghan does what she does best: shows up with compassion first, no fixes required.

Miles and Meghan also pull back the curtain on the Grief M.E.N.T.O.R. Method: Meghan's six-component framework that is rewriting how clinicians, companies, and everyday people understand and support loss. From the neuroscience of why your brain codes grief like a trauma folder, to why the five stages of grief were never meant for you, to why your body literally cannot trust itself to heal if you never go to the bathroom during the workday, this conversation is the grief education none of us ever got.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

How to Understand What Grief Actually Is
How to Recognize When Your Body Is Carrying Grief Before Your Mind Does
How to Stop White-Knuckling Through Hard Seasons Alone
How to Apply the Grief M.E.N.T.O.R. Method as a Daily Practice
How to Support a Grieving Person Without Saying the Wrong Thing
How to Tell the Difference Between Grief and Clinical Depression and Why It Matters

How to Reframe the Story You're Telling About Your Loss
How to Move Anger and Energy Through Your Body Instead of Staying Stuck in It
How to Stop Looking Outside Yourself for the Answers

Welcome to Human School, where we learn what matters most - Miles Adcox

Follow Human School:

YouTube - Human School Podcast

Instagram - @humanschoolofficial

Threads - @humanschoolofficial

TikTok - @humanschoolofficial

What We Discuss:

00:00 Introduction

00:01:17 Meet Meghan Riordan Jarvis

00:02:35 It's Always About the Story: The Red Tabaco Barn

00:13:15 Grief Redefined

00:20:48 The Labyrinth at Onsite

00:27:10 Sacred Instincts and Knowing What You Need

00:29:09 How Miles and Meghan Met

00:34:23 Meghan's Grief Origin Story & What Launched Her into This Career

00:43:26 Grief vs. Depression: Why Treating Them The Same Way is a Critical Mistake

00:45:44 A New Season of Grief - Life After Losing Her Mom

00:57:21 How Fury Became Rocket Fuel for the Grief M.E.N.T.O.R. Method

01:02:10 Why Even the Experts Aren't Protected

01:07:04 What to Say to a Griever: Practical, Human Guidance

01:12:02 The Neuroscience That Explains Everything

01:16:41 Empathy vs. Compassion: Why the Distinction Matters and How It Changes Who You Become

01:23:44 Meghan's Three-Step Framework

01:25:03 The Triangle of Trust

01:29:17 Mangled Spirituality, Morning Walks with a Priest, and Phone Alarms

01:36:21 What Happens When You Don't Address Grief

01:39:54 The Grief M.E.N.T.O.R. Method Explained

01:54:09 Why Miles Changed What Onsite Calls Its Clinicians

01:57:20 The Closing Message Neither of Them Planned

Mallory Ervin: What I Had to Lose to Find Myself Feb 04, 2026

Show notes

If this conversation resonated, Onsite offers immersive therapeutic experiences to help you slow down, reconnect, and get honest about what matters most. With campuses near Nashville and San Diego, Onsite supports people navigating burnout, relationship strain, addiction, trauma, or the sense that life feels off. Learn more at experienceonsite.com or call 1-800-341-7432. A simple conversation can be the first step toward living more fully.

What happens when you stop performing your life and start living it?

What if the exhaustion you're feeling isn't a sign you're doing something wrong, but proof you're finally doing something real?

Mallory Ervin has lived much of her life in front of people—as Miss Kentucky, on The Amazing Race, as a creator who's built an expansive online community, and as the founder of brands like Living Fully and In My Sundays. But what makes her story compelling isn't the resume. It's what she's done underneath all of it. Instead of hardening or hiding, Mallory has softened. She's let her life shape her work, and she hasn't rushed past the hard seasons or cleaned them up before telling the truth.

In this conversation, Mallory opens up about the cost of being known, the weight of building businesses while raising young kids, and the moments that forced her to ask whether she was living fully or just filling her days. She talks about the difference between being busy and being present and why rest became the foundation of her most successful business. She reveals what it's like to rebuild your sense of self when the world already has an opinion about who you are.

This isn't a conversation about balance or having it all figured out. It's about what it takes to stay human in the middle of a life that moves fast, feels full, and demands more than you sometimes have to give.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

How to stop living in the performance and start living in the presence
How grief doesn't follow a timeline and why that's okay
How motherhood forces you to confront who you really are
How to build a business around rest when you've spent your life running
How to navigate the gap between who you are in public and who you are at home
How to stop waiting for permission to take up space
How to let your life shape your work instead of the other way around
How to stay soft in a world that rewards being hard
How to honor the liminal space instead of rushing to the next thing
How to stop apologizing for being human

Welcome to Human School, where we learn what matters most - Miles Adcox

Follow Human School:

YouTube - Human School Podcast

Instagram - @humanschoolofficial

Threads - @humanschoolofficial

TikTok - @humanschoolofficial

What We Discuss:

00:00:00 Intro - Welcome to Human School

00:00:17 Meet Mallory Ervin

00:02:02 Showing Up Tired and Grateful

00:05:19 Why Authenticity Became Non-Negotiable

00:07:32 Why Recovery Was the Greatest Gift of My Life

00:17:20 Rock Bottom, Surrender, and Radical Honesty

00:23:10 You Don’t Have to Hit Rock Bottom to Change Your Life

00:32:57 Distraction, Social Media, and Avoiding Yourself

00:41:15 When Help Turned Into Addiction: Mallory's Journey to Recovery

00:58:52 What Recovery Support Actually Looks Like

01:08:30 Earning a PhD in Yourself

01:13:38 The Temptation to Go Back to Old Patterns

01:18:58 What Recovery Taught Me About Daily Life

01:35:52 Defining What "Live Fully" Really Means in Life

01:40:33 The Balance in Being Driven to Excellence and Staying Present

01:43:44 Creating a Life Your Kids Can Learn From & Be a Part Of

01:55:33 The Entrepreneur: Live Fully & In My Sundays

01:59:03 Closing Reflections on Authentic Living

Drake White: Finding Out Rock Bottom Has A Basement Jan 21, 2026

Show notes

Transform your trauma at Onsite. Visit onsiteworkshops.com to explore life-changing programs designed to help you heal, grow, and rediscover hope.

What if the worst moment of your life became the foundation for everything that came after?

Country music artist Drake White collapsed on stage in 2019 during a performance in Roanoke, Virginia. He was diagnosed with an AVM (arteriovenous malformation), a tangled mass of blood vessels in his brain that ruptured mid-song, paralyzing his left side. What could have ended his career and his life became the beginning of a deeper story about faith, resilience, and purpose.

In this conversation, Drake shares the surreal experience of having a stroke on stage and waking up in the hospital, unable to move half his body. He talks about how his wife duct-taped her leg to his and helped him relearn how to walk, only to face her own paralysis months later. He reflects on the moment a buck appeared on a trail camera behind his house and how that single image reignited his will to live. Drake goes into the basement of rock bottom, the power of covenant in marriage, and why listening to the quiet pull to “turn right instead of left” has reshaped how he lives.

This is a conversation about losing everything you thought made you who you are and discovering that rebuilding teaches you who you’ve always been.

In this conversation, you’ll learn:

How to find purpose when everything that defined you is stripped away
Why rock bottom has a basement and how foundations are built there
How to turn trauma into testimony without skipping the pain
How to navigate marriage when both partners are hurting
How nature and hunting became part of Drake’s healing journey
Why honoring bad days doesn’t cancel hope
How to break free from negativity loops and victim narratives
How to listen to the quiet pull guiding your next step

Welcome to Human School, where we learn what matters most—Miles Adcox

Follow Human School:YouTube – Human School PodcastInstagram – @humanschoolofficialThreads – @humanschoolofficialTikTok – @humanschoolofficial

What We Discuss:00:00:00 Intro - Welcome to Human School00:00:30 Drake White's Story: From Collapse to Comeback00:02:31 Rock Bottom Has a Basement: Building a Foundation in the Hole00:03:43 The Building Science Degree and Why Foundations Matter00:04:52 Getting Through Your Twenties Without Real Adversity00:10:40 Being in Her First Wedding: The Story of Pursuing Alex00:14:10 Diagnosed with an AVM: A Mass the Size of a Lime in His Brain00:16:21 August 16th, 2019: Taking the Stage in Roanoke, Virginia00:22:06 "I Thought I Had a Flat Tire, Not That the Engine Was Going Down"00:23:20 Exploration Over Fear: Surfing the Wave Psychologically00:25:19 The Deep Sleep Where He Had His Interaction with God00:26:22 Alex Drives Seven Hours: What Love Looks Like in Crisis00:28:43 Four Months Later: Alex's Paralysis in Steamboat Springs00:30:29 Calling for Help from Their Moms - "Nobody Loves You Like That"00:33:25 Relearning to Walk: The Thread of Hope Running Through It All00:35:39 Growing Up Baptist and Questioning Everything00:44:54 "The Ability to Have a Good Day in Bad Situations Is a Superpower"00:46:52 Taking a Right This Morning: Listening to the Pull00:51:02 Instinct, Intuition, Faith, and Self-Awareness00:53:03 Science and Religion Coexist: The Western Civilization Experiment01:00:05 "There's Always a Deeper Route" - Why Am I Here and Where Am I Going01:02:27 Coming Home After 40 Days and 40 Nights in the Hospital01:03:35 The Trail Camera Behind the House: A 175-Inch Deer01:12:11 Neuroplasticity: The Brain Forms New Pathways Around Lesions01:15:18 Make Your Trauma a Testimony for Somebody Else01:18:30 Ladder to the Sky: A Hunts the Healing Story01:21:38 Breaking the Negativity Loop, Blame Cycle, and Victim Narrative01:24:03 The Benefit for the Brain: A Night of Advocacy and Encouragement01:28:55 Be the Quarterback for Your Own Care

Donald Miller: Why the Villain’s Journey Shapes Who You Become Jan 14, 2026

Show notes

Ready to do deeper work? If this conversation resonates and you’re feeling stirred to look more honestly at your own story, visit experienceonsite.com or call 1-800-341-7432. Onsite offers immersive therapeutic experiences just outside Nashville and San Diego—spaces designed to help you slow down, look under the hood, and reimagine what’s possible in your relationships and life.

Have you ever wondered why the villain's journey matters more than the hero's? What if the worst thing that ever happened to you could become your greatest competitive advantage?

Donald Miller didn’t set out to become one of the most influential voices in modern communication. He started by trying to write his way out of pain. From feeling invisible as a kid in Texas to becoming a bestselling author and the creator of StoryBrand, Donald’s work is built on one core truth: clarity creates connection.

In this conversation, Donald opens up about the experiences that shaped him—father abandonment, poverty, ambition, and the inner villain stories we rarely examine. He shares why understanding the villain’s journey matters as much as the hero’s, how pain can become fuel rather than a prison, and why one of the most powerful phrases in leadership and parenting is simply, “Will you forgive me?”

Donald and Miles explore how cognitive load impacts nearly every area of life—from relationships and parenting to business, culture, and politics. Donald reflects on becoming a father at 49, the fear of loving something you can’t control, and why congruence—not perfection—is the most effective parenting tool we have. He also offers a thoughtful critique of modern political messaging and the incentives that keep problems unsolved.

This is a conversation about responsibility, healing, and learning to tell the truth—first to yourself, then to others.

Follow Human School:YouTube – Human School PodcastInstagram – @humanschoolofficialThreads – @humanschoolofficialTikTok – @humanschoolofficial

In this episode, you’ll learn:

How Pain Can Become the Birthplace of Purpose
Why the Villain’s Journey Deserves as Much Attention as The Hero’s
How Reducing Cognitive Load Helps People Actually Hear You
Why "Will You Forgive Me" Is as Powerful as "I Love You"
How One Single Sentence at Onsite Unlocked Years of Stuck Pain
Why Congruence Is the Most Powerful Parenting and Leadership Tool You Have
How to Know When to Get on the Plane and When to Stay Home

What We Discuss:

00:00:00 Intro – Welcome to Human School00:01:37 The Origin Story of Human School00:06:55 When StoryBrand Got Busy and Life Took Over00:08:38 The Three-Ring Binder That Changed Everything at Onsite00:10:26 How Onsite Reshaped Don’s Relationships00:13:07 Connection Is Where You Get the Most Meaning00:14:16 How Early Wounds Quietly Fuel Ambition00:19:12 Heroes, Villains, and The Stories We Avoid Examining00:24:10 "Onsite Healed and Redirected My Villain Story" 00:30:03 When Don Realized Writing Was an Effective Tool for Struggle00:38:15 How Don Went to Onsite in His Mid-Thirties and Everything Changed00:45:27 Having Your Heart Run Around the Room - The Fear and Wonder of Parenthood00:49:51 The Power of an Apology to Your Kid00:54:10 A Costly Business Mistake00:57:50 Why Leaders Fall into the Wizard of Oz Trap01:01:29 From Memoirs to Business Messaging

01:06:15 The Spectrum Brands Story: "Kids Love Aquariums" 01:08:30 The Jeb Bush Campaign vs. "Build a Wall"

01:10:08 Why Cognitive Load Applies to Parenting, Music, and Everything

01:14:05 The Doubling Tool: How Therapists Reduce Cognitive Load in Real Time01:17:48 How Onsite Gave Don His Sister Back01:19:26 AI, Clarity, and Communication01:25:20 Why Political Incentives Rarely Reward Solutions01:33:42 Why Nuance Doesn't Work in Storytelling 01:37:07 America’s Capacity for Self-Correction01:42:21 WeeklySoundbite.com and Don’s current work

Joshua Bassett: Vulnerability Isn't Weakness, It's the Pathway to Freedom Jan 07, 2026

Show notes

What happens when you stop hiding from the hardest parts of your story? What if the moments that nearly broke you are actually the ones that wake you up?

Joshua Bassett—Emmy-winning actor, musician, and creator of the deeply honest album The Golden Years—opens up about navigating heart failure at a young age, surviving public heartbreak, wrestling with suicidal ideation, and discovering that vulnerability isn't weakness, it's the pathway to freedom. From growing up homeschooled with emotional distance in his family to living in his car in Los Angeles at 16, Joshua shares how he's learned to turn pain into purpose, shame into connection, and fear into art.

In this raw and revealing conversation, Joshua talks about the family meeting that changed everything, the lies he believed about his intelligence, the spiritual awakening that followed a psychedelic experience, and why he believes chronic fight-or-flight is the biggest problem of our time. He introduces practical tools like his "thought-feeling-impulse-truth" exercise, breathing techniques to calm your nervous system, and why artists have to "pave the road" through their own pain so others can walk it more easily.

Joshua also shares about Sammy Sundays, the homeless outreach he co-founded, why safety matters more than talent in the creative process, and how learning to say the unsaid became his greatest act of courage. This isn't a conversation about fame or celebrity. It's about what it takes to become fully human in a world that rewards performance over presence.

And if you want to hear more of Joshua's story, his book ROOKIE comes out May 5, 2026. Pre-orders are available on joshuatbassett.com.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

How to Use the "Thought-Feeling-Impulse-Truth" Framework to Process Anxiety
How Vulnerability Creates Connection, Even When It's Terrifying
How to Get Out of Fight-or-Flight Using Science-Backed Techniques
How to Stop Apologizing for Your Unique Way of Thinking

How to Recognize When You're Pushing Emotions Down Instead of Processing Them
How to Create Safety in Creative Spaces
How to Stop Letting Other People's Perceptions Define Your Identity
How Love Is Worth Living For Even in Your Darkest Moment

Learn More About Onsite
Discover the transformational experiences that support deep healing and growth. Visit experienceonsite.com to learn about Onsite's immersive programs in Tennessee and Southern California, or call 1-800-341-7432.

Follow Human School:
YouTube - Human School Podcast
Instagram - @humanschoolofficial
Threads - @humanschoolofficial
TikTok - @humanschoolofficial

What We Discuss:

00:00:00 Welcome to Human School
00:00:41 Meet Joshua Bassett
00:03:19 Why Vulnerability Is Always Met With Vulnerability
00:07:53 The Hospital Room Confession: When Heart Failure Brought His Family Closer
00:10:33 The Family Meeting Where Everything Shifted
00:19:17 Why Polarization Sells and Productive Conversations Don't Have Winners
00:22:29 How Artists Are the Ones Who Will Bring Culture Back Together
00:28:04 The Film Role That Gave Him Back Pain From Vicarious Trauma
00:30:02 Mirror Neurons: How We Catch Emotions Like a Cold
00:35:09 Why Fight-or-Flight Is the Biggest Problem of Our Time
00:39:27 The 20 Tools He Uses to Get Out of Fight-or-Flight
00:41:21 Thought-Feeling-Impulse-Truth: The Framework That Changed His Life
00:43:10 Life Lessons from Universal Studios Experiences
00:50:14 Sammy Sundays: The Homeless Outreach That Radically Changed His Life
00:53:07 The Vagus Nerve and Science-Backed Ways to Calm Your Nervous System
00:57:09 Guided Breathing Exercise: 4 Seconds In, Hold for 7, Out for 8
01:00:36 Why He Can't Be Attached to Someone Else's Plan
01:10:05 What Brought Him Back to Music
01:13:08 Why Safety Matters More Than Talent in the Creative Process
01:18:09 How Public Perception Shapes and Distorts Who We Think Someone Is
01:21:25 The Night He Almost Gave Up
01:28:18 What He'd Say to Someone at a Crossroads Right Now

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