📋 Episode Summary

In this episode, Emily and Marc talk with Toya Moore — coach, community advocate, yoga teacher, ICF South Carolina president, mom, and someone very intentionally reimagining this phase of her life.

The conversation moves through rest, parenting adult children, play, community-building, coaching, strengths, and what happens when life strips away some of the things we thought defined us. Toya shares how a serious car accident shifted her understanding of identity, resources, rest, and groundedness.

It's a warm, funny, vulnerable conversation about being in transition without rushing to solve it — about learning to pour into yourself, plant both feet on the ground, and be okay not knowing what tomorrow looks like.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Rest is not the opposite of growth. For Toya, rest is part of preparing for a thoughtful pivot.

• Parenting adult children may require reimagining old patterns rather than simply repeating how we were parented.

• Intentional boundaries — like Do Not Disturb, no late-night calls, and a Sabbath rhythm — can become a practical form of self-care.

• Play does not always have to be elaborate. Sometimes whimsy looks like singing Hall & Oates in the grocery store or reading yourself a bedtime story.

• Strengths can be overused. VIA Strengths gives Toya a way to help people understand what serves them, what needs practice, and what may get in the way.

• Losing "the things" — a car, money, furniture, status, titles, or ease — can reveal deeper questions about character and identity.

• A pivot is not only the action of turning. Sometimes it is the grounded point that makes the turn possible.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"I am planted at the intersection of rest and pivoting." – Toya

"I don't need to do all those new things. I need to finish the things that I have been working on for years and years and years." – Toya

"I had my likeness put into a book… I read myself a bedtime story." – Toya

"The hat rack at your house has so many hooks for all the different hats you wear." – Marc

"Who are you without all the things?" – Toya

"The pivot is that I've got my front foot rooted, or my back foot rooted, or my core engaged. That's where the action comes from." – Emily

"I want to normalize being in a space of uncertainty and not knowing which way I'm going and being okay with it." – Toya

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• International Coaching Federation of South Carolina https://icfsc.org/

• VIA Strengths / Values in Action

• Life University positive psychology program

• Veterans Yoga Project

👥 Who Should Listen

• Parents learning how to relate to their adult children in a new way

• Coaches, facilitators, and community leaders navigating a season of transition

• People who are tired of burning the candle at both ends and want rest to become more intentional

• Anyone asking who they are apart from roles, titles, status, money, or possessions

• Leaders who care about strengths-based work, somatics, mindfulness, and community-building

🎺 That Music!

Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music.
Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar
Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet
Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary

In this episode, Emily and Marc continue their season on transitions by exploring the word "passage." What begins with train tickets, hallways, and magical doorways becomes a deeper conversation about the passages that mark a life: marriage, graduation, parenthood, moving, grief, aging parents, and adult children launching into their own lives.

They notice how often major transitions do not feel like dramatic reveals. Sometimes, after the wedding, the degree, the move, or the milestone, the honest feeling is simply, "still me." And yet, looking back, those passages have changed them, shaped them, and left markers along the way.

The conversation becomes an invitation to pay attention to the hallway, not just the room we came from or the one we are entering. What are the "piles of rocks" worth remembering? What are the moments of no going back? And what might we notice if we stop rushing through the passage?

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Passage is not the same as being a passenger. It can be an active, meaningful space between one place and another.

• Many major life transitions do not come with a dramatic reveal. Sometimes the marker happens, and we still feel like ourselves.

• Looking back helps us see how much we have changed, even when the change was gradual or hard to notice at the time.

• Rituals, ceremonies, bridges, graduations, and other symbolic markers help us name the "no going back" moments in life.

• Some passages are chosen, and some arrive through grief, aging, parenting, loss, or family change.

• Noticing the details of the passage — the hallway, the baseboards, the exposed wires, the "pile of rocks" — can make transition feel more meaningful and less accidental.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"I think of the passageway into magical worlds. Narnia, hedges, doorways, something that is a passage into another place." – Emily

"It's the purposeful space in between. It connects two places." – Marc

"I wonder if we do that with some of the transitions in our life — where we're coming from and where we're going to occupy our mind." – Marc

"The passage of marriage, of doing life together, is continual. That's a really long doorway." – Emily

"Maybe it could be reassuring that there's not a big makeover or a big reveal." – Marc

"Reveals are staged. Reveals are really edited." – Emily

"I like your noticing that no-going-backness." – Emily

"I think a danger would be to just let things happen instead of observing them or acknowledging them." – Marc

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• Sprouts, Emily's weekly newsletter https://ejpitman.com/about-sprouts/
• The Northwest Passage
• "Time Passages" by Al Stewart
• Passage to India
• Narnia
• "Sunrise, Sunset"
• St. John of the Cross and the Dark Night of the Soul
• Brownies and Girl Scouts bridging ceremonies
• Driver's Ed walk-around checklists
• Hebrew Scripture practice of marking memory with piles of rocks

👥 Who Should Listen

• People in a season of transition who expected it to feel more dramatic or obvious than it does.

• Parents adjusting to adult children launching into their own lives.

• Couples reflecting on marriage as a long, ongoing passage rather than a single moment.

• Anyone navigating grief, aging parents, end-of-life passages, or family change.

• Listeners who appreciate reflective conversations about rituals, memory, and the meaning hidden in ordinary transitions.

🎺 That Music!
Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music.
Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar
Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet
Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary

In this episode of Still Figuring It Out, Marc and Emily continue their season-long conversation about transitions by exploring the word "metamorphosis." Even though the butterfly image can feel overused, Emily names what she still loves about it: the wonder of living in a universe where what you see is not always what you get.

The conversation moves from HGTV reveal scenes and The Princess Diaries to leadership transformation, midwifery, faith, parenting, marriage, conflict, and the long waiting seasons that make change possible. Marc reflects on the kind of transformation where there is no desire to go back, while Emily reminds us that metamorphosis often looks like waiting, watching, stretching, conflict, and becoming.

Together, they sit with the messiness of change: the cocoon, the not-yet, the impatience, the anger, the grace to let others become, and the hope of being ready to "catch and witness" what emerges.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Metamorphosis may be an overused image, but it still holds real wonder: the possibility that what we see now is not the whole story.

• Transformation is rarely instant. It can involve long seasons of waiting, watching, and not knowing what is forming underneath the surface.

• Conflict can be part of becoming. Whether in childhood, young adulthood, marriage, faith, or leadership, tension often reveals that something new is trying to emerge.

• Marc connects metamorphosis to leadership transformation: helping people reach a place so fully their own that going back no longer feels possible or desirable.

• Emily names impatience and anger not as weaknesses to erase, but as part of "the color of the picture."

• One act of grace is choosing to believe that someone's change may be metamorphosis, not avoidance, flippancy, or failure to do the work.

• The process may not be beautiful, but the results can be worth it.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"Being in a universe where what you see isn't necessarily what you get." – Emily

"All of us want a reveal moment." – Emily

"The reveal is that you're the princess on your terms." – Emily

"We love helping leaders see that what might look like the end might really be a glorious beginning." – Marc

"A transformation so complete, there's no danger of going back. There's no desire to go back." – Marc

"Metamorphosis isn't a today, tomorrow." – Emily

"It's deciding to stay walking until we figure out how this new pace is going to be." – Emily

"I want to give grace for people to change and to be other." – Marc

"I want to be ready to catch and witness." – Emily

"The process isn't beautiful. But the results are really worth it." – Marc

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• HGTV reveal scenes
• The Princess Diaries
• Concord Leadership Group manifesto https://concordleadershipgroup.com/manifesto
• Quadrant 3 Leadership
• Midwifery as a metaphor for helping transformation emerge
• St. John of the Cross and the dark night of the soul
• Indigenous cultures, seasons, and life cycles
• Hallmark movies
• Monstera plants

👥 Who Should Listen

• People who are in a long transition and frustrated that change is taking longer than expected.

• Leaders, coaches, and helpers who walk with others through transformation.

• Parents watching children, teens, or adult children become more fully themselves.

• Couples who are learning how conflict can become part of deeper togetherness.

• Listeners who resonate with faith, doubt, curiosity, and the messiness of personal growth.

• Anyone who needs permission to trust that something may be forming even when it only looks like waiting.

🎺 That Music!
Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music.
Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar
Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet
Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary
This episode begins, as many do, in the wonderfully ordinary—missing pillows, pollen season in Greenville, and the small negotiations of shared space. But quickly, the conversation pivots (intentionally and unexpectedly) into a deeper exploration of transitions—what they are, how we navigate them, and what truly anchors us when everything feels like it's shifting.

Marc reflects on the modern pressure for certainty in leadership and life, while Emily reframes the idea of "pivot" from a tired buzzword into something embodied, grounded, and even elegant. Drawing from dance, grammar, coaching, and spirituality, they explore what it means to have a true pivot point—not just a change in direction, but a grounded place from which meaningful movement happens.

The conversation unfolds into a rich, layered reflection on agency, identity, and perspective: Are we the ones acting, or the ones being acted upon? And how might shifting that lens change how we move through seasons of transition?

🔑 Key Takeaways
• A true pivot isn't just a change in direction—it requires a stable, grounded point to turn from.
• Modern leadership often craves certainty, but today's reality demands adaptability rooted in values.
• We tend to oversimplify problems by searching for a single cause instead of recognizing broader systems.
• Transitions invite curiosity and expectancy—not just problem-solving or loss-focused thinking.
• Language shapes perspective: shifting subject and object can radically change how we understand our role in change.
• Agency in transitions is more complex than control—it may involve both acting and responding.

🗣 Quote Highlights
"Pivot is the act of pivoting… but it's also the place where your foot lands before you turn." – Emily

"I think it's more realistic to ask, what are the guiding principles…rather than what's the five-year plan?" – Marc

"I remember the strength and the sassiness I felt when I learned to pivot turn." – Emily

"I have an amazing ability to find one thing to blame in what's actually a systemic issue." – Marc

"We often focus on what we're losing in transitions instead of being curious about what's coming." – Marc

"The pivot point is you—and the action you take toward those things." – Emily

"We don't impact everything… sometimes we're the ones being impacted." – Emily

🧰 Tools & Mentions
• Merriam-Webster (definitions of "pivot")
• WordHippo (word exploration tool)
• Pivot tables (Excel reference)
• Dr. Nadia Nuxemblyva / Reinvention Lab
• Anne Handley ("Justice for M-Dashes")
• Robert Webber (writings on worship)
• Richard Rohr (the "divine dance")

👥 Who Should Listen
• Leaders navigating uncertainty and tired of rigid long-term planning models
• People in a season of transition who feel pressure to "figure it out" quickly
• Coaches, facilitators, and consultants exploring deeper frameworks for change
• Couples or partners working and growing together through life transitions
• Anyone wrestling with control, agency, and meaning in times of change

🎺 That Music!
Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music.
Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar
Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet
Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary
In this episode, Emily and Marc take up the word shift and explore it from several angles: literal, emotional, vocational, and spiritual. What begins with fish tanks, threshold art, and a joke about spelling quickly turns into a story about an unexpectedly manual rental car in Germany, a long-delayed train trip, and Marc's sudden return to driving stick shift after decades away from it.

From there, the conversation deepens. A stick shift becomes a metaphor for all kinds of life changes: the shifts between work and home, pride and self-consciousness, intention and muscle memory, control and listening. Emily names the in-between moment of pressing the clutch — disengaging before re-engaging — as its own kind of threshold. Marc reflects on the difference between switching off and actually shifting, and both of them notice how much of life is less about forcing control than learning to listen and adjust.

It is a thoughtful, funny, grounded episode about noticing what is changing beneath the surface — and what it might mean to meet those changes with curiosity instead of strain.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Shifts are often smaller and subtler than big transitions, but they still shape how we move through life.
• A literal stick shift became a vivid metaphor for unexpected adaptation, muscle memory, stress, and learning in real time.
• The space between gears matters: shifting involves a moment of disengagement before re-engagement, not just a hard stop and restart.
• Marc reflects on how difficult it can be to shift from work to home when the work is meaningful and deeply integrated into life.
• Emily notices shifts most clearly in energy — body, mind, and spirit — and questions whether those shifts are meant to be controlled or listened to.
• Pride is not always vanity; sometimes it is about ease, confidence, reliability, and not having to carry extra self-consciousness.
• Curiosity can be a healthier response to change than forcing, managing, or trying to dominate every variable.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"A shift, to me, says adjust." – Emily

"That's when I realized the unseen shift. The stick shift." – Marc

"There's a point of disengage and re-engage where we're back to that threshold." – Emily

"I think I do live in liminal spaces, and relish that." – Marc

"I think it may be a listen to and adjust." – Emily

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• WordHippo.com
• Shift work in factories and hospitals
• Driving stick shift / standard transmission
• German train delays
• Leiden, Netherlands
• Bremen, Germany
• Enterprise Rent-A-Car
• ChatGPT as a travel helper during the rental-car scramble
• The Autobahn
• Sabbath as a weekly forced switch away from income-producing work
• Thresholds and liminal space
• Aquarium life: neon tetras and snails
• The "Brew House" threshold picture above the garage

👥 Who Should Listen

• People navigating subtle but meaningful life changes
• Anyone adjusting to unexpected travel, work, or family stress
• Work-from-home people who struggle to shift out of work mode
• Listeners interested in liminal space, thresholds, and everyday metaphors
• People exploring how energy changes through the day and how to respond with more awareness
• Anyone who appreciates reflective conversations that begin in ordinary life and end somewhere deeper

🎺 That Music!
Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music.
Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar
Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet
Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary
Season 4 opens with Emily and Marc doing what they do best: starting in the middle of real life and letting the conversation unfold from there. This episode sets the theme for the season — transition — and explores it from multiple angles: family life, grief, business shifts, creativity, aging, parenting, and the strange in-between spaces where you do not fully know what comes next.

Emily introduces the idea of using a different word related to transition for each episode this season, and what follows is playful, thoughtful, and surprisingly grounded. They move from WordHippo rabbit trails to labor metaphors, from no-show certification cohorts to children's books, thresholds, poetry, and the honest recognition that this season of life is asking something new of both of them.

The result is a warm beginning to the season: part orientation, part confession, part invitation. It is about change, yes, but even more about learning to inhabit change with a little more spaciousness, a little less forcing, and a willingness to be more real than safe.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Season 4 is built around the theme of transition, with each episode exploring a different related word or facet of change.
• Transition is not just a single dramatic moment; it can be a process, a threshold, a departure, a grief passage, a creative opening, or a business reorientation.
• Emily reflects on transition through the lens of childbirth: the moment of "I can't do this anymore" can actually be the sign that something new is about to emerge.
• Marc shares how an unexpected business disappointment became an invitation to stop forcing outcomes and instead invest more deeply in existing relationships.
• Both of them name how much of this season of life includes overlapping transitions: children launching, aging parents, grief, work shifts, and changing identities.
• Space and rest are not empty; they can become the conditions for creativity, clarity, and a quieter kind of conviction.
• One of the hopes for this season is to show up less guarded and more honest — to play it more real than safe.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"When I'm at the end of my strength that I know I have, then there's more that's within me to follow." – Emily

"I am free-falling, but I'm totally held." – Marc

"I don't need to apologize for the fact that I love children's books, and I think that they're really important art." – Emily

"Playing it more real than more safe." – Emily

"One of the things that I really enjoy about us is that we continue to grow, and change, and learn." – Marc

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• Zoho Projects
• WordHippo
• The idea of using one transition-related word per episode this season
• Birth and midwifery as a metaphor for transition
• Leadership certification and the transition from pushing for a new cohort to tending existing graduates
• Epcot's hang-gliding-style ride as an image of being held in uncertainty
• Chicago and "He Had It Coming"
• Thinking on Thresholds: The Aesthetics of Transitive Spaces
• The Eric Carle Picture Book Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts
• Children's books as serious art
• Poetry Foundation's poem-a-day podcast

👥 Who Should Listen

• People navigating a season of personal or professional transition
• Couples who work, build, and reflect on life together
• Parents adjusting to children launching into adulthood
• Adults caring for or thinking about aging parents
• Creative people trying to make room for what feels quietly true
• Anyone learning to stop forcing the next step and live more honestly in the in-between

🎺 That Music!
Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music.
Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar
Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet
Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary
In this warm and reflective season finale, Marc and Emily close out Season 3 by looking back at the conversations, surprises, and throughlines that emerged. From getting their first live Christmas tree in two decades to reflecting on the grief and growth that shaped their year, they offer a candid behind-the-scenes look at how the season unfolded.

They talk about the intention behind creating a story arc, the joy of unexpected episodes, and how Concord Leadership Group is more than just a name—it's a shared vision of harmony and wholehearted leadership. Plus, they preview hopes (and side quests!) for Season 4 and 2026.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Most podcasts don't make it past 3 or 20 episodes—finishing Season 3 is a milestone worth celebrating.
• Conversations around grief, transition, and rest shaped this season in unseen but powerful ways.
• Planned arcs are great—but spontaneous questions often spark the best episodes.
• "Concord" means harmony—and that resonance is core to their life and leadership work.
• 2026 will bring themes of legacy, hardwiring, coaching, and living into one's vision.
• Leaders don't need to bottle hope—they need space to be seen and grow at their own pace.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"This season was not a color I could name—and not a sock yarn pattern either. But there were threads that came through." – Emily
"We've never been answer holders. We say, 'Here's my understanding—tell me what you think.'" – Emily
"Don't keep digging up the seed. It's part of the process." – Marc
"Perfectly imperfect—that's us." – Emily
"The shortest way is often the long way." – Marc
"We get to be part of a vision. A wholehearted approach to life." – Emily
"May there be light and color, and comfort and joy." – Emily

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• 📚 Legendborn & Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn
• 🌲 Live Christmas tree (first in 20+ years... with cats!)
• 🧶 Yarn metaphors: solid, variegated, sock yarn
• 💻 ConcordLeadershipGroup.com & Emily's blog post on "Concord"
• 📰 Jeff Gibbard's Infinite Impact Newsletter
• 🧭 Coaching conversations around values, legacy, and intentional leadership
• 🧠 Magnetized 2026 cohort—ongoing growth and goal setting

👥 Who Should Listen

• Longtime fans who want a wrap-up and peek behind the scenes
• Leaders navigating grief, life transitions, or legacy work
• Coaches, founders, and partners building a vision together
• Listeners who value curiosity, humility, and meaningful conversation
• Anyone looking for a reminder that they're not alone—and still figuring it out, too

🎺 That Music!
Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music.
Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar
Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet
Zoe Czarnecki – bass