Rarely have I had this sense of experiencing real change in my perspective in real-time. Shockingly this happened not just once, but twice, in my conversation with my friend Charles Hartford.

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Charles is an incredible man, who has lived an incredible life and can relay those learnings in a wildly engaging manner. I could have talked with and learned from Charles for hours.

Charles leads by example when it comes to fulfilling his role as a leader, servant, husband, father, teacher, community member, and a man of faith.

Listen to the full episode on your streaming platform of choice, but specifically find the moment that shifted my perception and shattered any doubt I had about the power of prayer here.

I used to be dismissive and critical of prayer, often thinking: why don’t you actually take some real action to help someone?

Charle’s story challenged that perspective. After all, when someone you love is 8,000 miles away, engaged in daily, unknown levels of conflict, what else is there to do but pray?

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Keep showing up,

Kyle Layne

Listen and follow on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, or YouTube.

I slipped into the chair mid-conversation of those already gathered in the shade, thankful for the reprieve and also soaking in my new view of the towering mountains we had all nestled our weekend camp beneath. My one year old gave a squeal of joy and elicited a round of chuckles from those who were sitting and listening to stories of a faraway land many years ago.

“Then, after the Peace Corp, I moved back to the states and taught high school English the rest of my career,” said a new acquaintance, Gwen.

From a distance I had heard tales of hippos, crocodiles, giraffes, and lions, but now as I sat amongst the others in the shade I could finally engage in the conversation.

“What have the last few years been like as an English teacher with the new AI tools that are available?” I asked.

A smile, followed by a combination of a groan and a sigh escaped her lips. “It’s changed so much,” she said, “there’s a spark from the kids that has been lost. The creativity is gone, and everything reads the same. And the parents,” she shook her head, “they have been the most difficult to deal with…”

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I confess, my friends and readers, that I have used AI to help generate content on this here Substack. It felt gross, cheap, and lazy but I had a self-imposed deadline to hit and I justified it by adding back in “my” voice to the piece. I only did it a few times, but those times have stuck with me and been hard to shake.

But here’s the thing: I’m glad I did it. I’m glad I experimented with the tool in this space and discovered its very tangible, extremely visceral limitations—it’s remarkably not human1. This work—the space that I really enjoy to operate—is about the lived human experience. The stumblings, imperfections, and incredibly beautiful pain of being a human being. There was something incredibly off whenever an AI model would attempt to write, short or long, for a piece here.

I’ll get into my own more philosophical take on AI later in this post2, but first I want to highlight something that I feel really lucky to have declared nearly two years ago. In writing Chasing Control3, I immediately promised myself that I would do it the more difficult way. I wasn’t ever going to plug the piece, either a sentence or an entire section, into any AI model for help. It caused me to feel stuck for days on end, to wrestle with portions of the story for months at a time and to agonize over word choice and flow. It drove hours of conversation with others and caused tens of thousands of word to be written and scraped, never to see the light of day.

But this is my family’s story. It’s imperfect, agonizing, exhilarating and all those emotional states in-between and I knew I couldn’t fully honor it without doing every bit of writing on my own.

This is a funny stance to have to take. Certainly writers of the past never had to wrestle with the temptation of an easy button, right? No matter, there’s a proliferation of books being written right now, some metrics putting the month-over-month output on Amazon at 3x and growing. There’s an easy button to writing and many people are taking it.

Not this story. It made the process brutal. I get why many books never see the light of day. There were so many points I saw the exit ramp, but kept driving past. Staring at a blinking cursor waiting for you to start moving it across the page and producing words on digital paper has a weird way of making my insides turn. There were many mornings I had to trust my fingers on the keyboard as my ability to read what I wrote was nullified by tears gathering in my eyes.

Prompting my way through this story wouldn’t have healed and clarified in the manner that painfully working through each and every sentence over nearly two years provided. The process was intense, but required.

So why did I feel compelled to write this piece?

Sitting in the shade seeking refuge from the sun at the base of those majestic mountains I was surrounded by strangers who pulled together for a weekend to celebrate and honor a person who had impacted us all. Bonds formed quickly as we shared in our memories of their incredibly awesome and loving life that felt like it had ended all too soon. Connection is one of the most beautiful things about being a human. Finding others who are striving, struggling, joyous, sad, and every shared experience in-between is why we live. It’s why we’re here.

We have the potential for purpose in front of us every single day. We can show up for an individual struggling, or conversely open up and ask another human being for help. We can pull someone into an embrace to show them that there is support and love around them, or we could simply sit and quietly listen to another person, letting them know they’re heard and not alone.

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All these things are available to us only with each other. Machines can’t fulfill this, only the connection with another person can. This is the beautiful experience we can partake in each and every day we are gifted in this life.

Keep showing up: for yourself and for those around you.

Kyle Layne

But most of us don’t operate at 98.7%. Hell, most days hardly any of us seem to get much past 60%. That’s what gets me about recovery stories. It’s why I love addicts. These are people who completely turned their lives around and went from near zero, knocking on death’s door, to living up to a level of potential they never could have fathomed.

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That’s Corwin’s story: from riding around town on a bicycle in the middle of a blizzard, searching for everything he had lost, to becoming the trustworthy man he once thought was gone forever.

One of the honors of doing this work is when I get off one of these conversations, and my guest says something like, “I can’t wait to share this with my family. I have never been able to fully explain to them my full experience.”

This is one of those conversations. Corwin Knight is as regular as you or I. He assumed that the depths he traversed in his battle with addiction made him a loner. He was wrong. And in this week’s episode of the More Than Capable podcast, he opens up completely and honestly.

Listen and follow on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, or YouTube.
If the conversation helps you, please follow and rate the show. It makes a huge difference for a show like this, and those small actions have far-reaching impacts.

Keep showing up,

Kyle Layne

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P.S. A few spots remain in the small Advanced Read Group for my book coming out in Fall 2026, Chasing Control. Sign up here for free.

No words were spoken. Each of us glanced at the others, straining against the weight of our packs. We stayed silent to afford each other a moment to steady ourselves from the climb. A tired smile formed on my face as I looked over the landscape we had traversed and this ragtag crew of guys that had come together over the last few months. Much like life, mountain pursuits had been a solo adventure for me in the past. Today, it felt good to be with others on the trail.

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“This is, without a doubt, the hardest hike I have ever been on,” our flatlander friend Tyler exclaimed, having just flown in that morning from Minnesota. He leaned hard on his hiking sticks as he gathered himself and quietly laughed, a stark departure from his normal booming laugh that fills a room and leaves people smiling at its power.

The statement broke the silence and permitted us all an exhausted chuckle and a chance to comment on the rigors of the hike that had gone unspoken as we had climbed over two thousand feet over the last few hours.

I mindlessly poked at the ground with my hiking stick thinking back to the first real conversation Tyler and I had together a month before. His far north Minnesota accent gave a hint that he and I had likely walked similar paths. After nearly an hour of talking, we connected that we both had core childhood memories at the exact same lake located in north-central Minnesota. A friendship was immediately born over memories of mid-summer storms and our favorite fishing stories.

“Yeah, the path sure looks different when you look at it on the screen,” replied Ryan, the sole native Idahoan on the trip and the instigator of this current adventure.

Being in the mountains with Ryan was special. He was completely at home and at peace in the wilderness. Ryan and I had met for the first time at a breakfast months before. Our talks about our desires to better ourselves as husbands, fathers, and servants to others had drawn us close. He lived life intentionally without being loud or performative. He contemplated situations deeply and spoke only when and what was necessary.

“Geez, Jace, are you even fazed by this?” Tyler asked as he leaned forward harder into his trekking poles, calling upon the fourth member of our party.

I turned to see the youngest member of our party at the back of the line as he held his binoculars in hand and scanned the far face of the opposing mountainside. One look at Jace and you knew he had spent a lifetime on the wrestling mats. Weeks earlier we had all watched Jace emerge from the water in a cold pond far from any civilization in Idaho after getting baptized. We were all lucky enough to bear witness to a fire being lit within Jace in that moment.

“Boys, we’re just woodpeckers in a petrified forest…1” Jace stated as he continued to scan the mountainside through his binoculars.

Jace attempted to remain stoic and continue to hold the binoculars steady, but the comment made him sputter with laughter and his body began trembling in an attempt to hold back further laughter. But the laughter was contagious, made more so from our sheer exhaustion. The laughter started feeding off itself, and I found myself oscillating between thinking I had control only to find more laughter welling up within me that I couldn’t contain.

After the laughter finally dissipated, there was a moment of calm where I felt incredible gratitude for the company I was in and the experience we were having. These moments are still not lost on me. This is that second chance at a life that I felt was all but lost over three years ago. These are the moments of complete immersion in the present that I struggled to find before recovery.

I shifted my gaze to a small finger ridge behind me. Towering at the end of the ridge was a giant column of a rock formation. I felt the tug of a desire to explore pull me to investigate the formation.

“I’ll be right back, I’m going to see what the view is like from over there,” I said as I was already turning and walking the path to the rock outcropping.

The chatter of the group slowly faded off as I worked my way towards the end of the ridge. As I neared the rock formation, I noticed a small clearing with details that didn’t seem all that natural. Wood was stacked and positioned in a way that seemed like someone had posted up and worked to make the space comfortable for them. As I moved onward, a makeshift fire ring came into view. Then, I noticed the unopened beer.

Four beers, ready to drink, sat nestled next to a log positioned next to the fire with an extraordinary view of the valley below. I stopped in shock of the find, often having found empties in the backcountry, but never this. I paused a moment and let my eyes drift from those beers lying on the ground to my three friends that I could see standing a couple hundred yards off, chatting and continuing to laugh.

Their conversation was only a murmur to me at this distance, and I thought about the various pursuits and challenges that each of us had faced over the past few years that had brought us together. Each of us had our own individual battles, but we shared the commonality of wanting to draw ourselves closer to God, the ultimate pursuit that had brought us together.

I brought my gaze back down to the four unopened beers. I allowed my mind to drift back to my very first trip to the mountains of Idaho where I adventured alone and was very much searching for something beyond the game that I hunted2. It had been nearly ten years since that first solo adventure. At the time, I was obsessed with being alone. I was convinced I had to achieve and solve all of the problems in my life by myself. Those four beers sat there on the ground, not tempting me but reminding me of a life that once was and that the descent back to the hell of loneliness and isolation could always spring up when I least suspected it.

Tyler’s booming laugh echoed off the rock outcropping I now stood by and lifted me from my trance. I looked up, knowing what I now desire in life.

I turned and headed back towards my friends.

Keep showing up,

Kyle Layne

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Looking for more? Follow the podcast on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, or YouTube. While you’re there, please leave a rating or a comment. These small actions have major impacts on a podcast such as More Than Capable.

Yet the messages slowly trickled in from those who love someone fighting what feels like an isolated and impossible battle. This week’s conversation with my incredible wife is for you. In it, we discuss what has changed over the last three years in recovery. We talk about the difficulties of the descent, the fear, frustration, and agony of living in a chaotic and insane cycle week in and week out for years on end.

But we also talk about hope and perseverance. Not everyone’s story will follow our own trajectory, but just as there is power in one addict speaking with another, there is power in loved ones of addicts coming together to share their trials, struggles, and revelations.

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Alyssa’s bravery, loyalty, and perseverance cannot be overstated. We hope this helps you in your journey.

Reference: Chapter 8: To Wives

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Follow the podcast on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, or YouTube. While you’re there, please leave a rating or a comment. These small actions have major impacts on a podcast such as More Than Capable.

Keep showing up.

Kyle Layne

I looked up at my wife as we both sat on the couch, winding down our day. I wondered if the deadpan stare I cast outward communicated the complete lack of knowledge or opinions I had about hydrangeas, their placement, or their quantity.

“Sure, there is something appealing about groups of threes, I suppose,” I finally responded.

Our conversations on this couch have shifted dramatically over the last three years. Sitting on the couch discussing flower placement out front is a far cry from the agonizing conversations we would have as I slid further and further into despair and isolation as I continued to weave the web of lies to hide my drinking.

May 14th, 2023 is the day that I was gifted the opportunity to change course. It, and the following days, were the most fear-ridden I have ever been in my life. I had no idea what recovery meant, what it looked like, nor how to sustain it. Even though I had this opportunity in front of me, life felt all but over. I couldn’t actually envision a life in recovery.

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Three years in recovery is both something and nothing all at once. It feels like such little time, yet I know how agonizing it was to go three minutes without thinking about alcohol before recovery. To have the obsessive thoughts eradicated from my life is a miracle in itself.

Recognizing three as an oddly harmonious and powerful number, I wanted to put together my three learnings across three important topics that I have been gifted and discovered over these last three years.

Three Bits of Advice for People in Early Recovery

1. Stop asking ‘Why?’
   You don’t need to understand why you’re an addict to find recovery, you simply need to accept the fact that your life has become unmanageable in its current form. Chasing the ‘why’ is a distraction. Even if you discover an answer to it, so what? What are you going to do with that information? By letting go of the ‘why’ you can focus all your effort on figuring out what it takes for you to live in recovery each and every day.

2. View alcohol as your solution, not your problem
   When you frame alcohol, or your drug of choice, as a solution you can start asking yourself: ‘A solution to what?’ That question can lead you to deeper, more fundamental issues that you are more than likely attempting to numb, suppress, or hide from. If you can face those problems, name them, and start working on them, you will start to discover other solutions, besides a substance, to help you manage through those root problems.

3. Be selfish in protecting your recovery
   Nothing should come before your recovery. Absolutely nothing. Not your marriage, your kids, your job, your other relationships. If you don’t prioritize your recovery, you should be prepared to sacrifice everything. And I mean everything. I have seen it, I nearly experienced it myself. This is where the relationships become difficult. Some people won’t accept you prioritizing your recovery, and that’s okay. They’ll either come to accept it, or move on from your life. If they can’t handle you prioritizing your recovery, they’re not meant for your life anyway.

Three Steps to Live One Day at a Time

1. Pray
   First thing in the morning: request your selfish desires and ego be stripped of you for the coming day. Pray for continued faith, learning, and progression. The simplest version of this prayer, that I can go to even in the most rushed of mornings, is: “Thy will be done, not mine.”

2. Act
   Do the things that keep you in recovery with intention. Be quick to apologize for missteps and genuinely change your behavior, if needed. Simply put: Do the next best thing.

3. Reflect
   Sit at the edge of your bed before retiring for the night. Recount your day. Do you have any house cleaning to do? Do you owe anyone an apology for your actions? How did you make progress today? What occurred that you can be grateful for that you might not have noticed in the moment? By taking these steps, I guarantee you will find a deep and sound night of sleep each and every evening.

Three Unexpected Benefits of Recovery

1. Feeling feelings
   It’s frightening to reflect back and realize how numb I was for so many years. I feared the ups and downs of life and went to alcohol to relieve that fear and numb those feelings. Ironically, alcohol made the highs higher and the lows lower to a degree that was completely unmanageable. “Feeling the feels” these days has become a beautiful component of life. Experiencing life as it was intended to be lived, both the ups and downs in their raw unaltered form, is a joy that I never expected to achieve three years ago.

2. Navigating hardship
   I have been asked on numerous occasions what has made me proud about living in recovery. Pride is a tough thing for me to talk about. I still honestly don’t know how to approach it, and I take a very cautious stance towards stating pride about anything. But knowing how much our lives were falling apart before recovery, I can say that I am genuinely humbled and honored to be able to navigate the difficult periods of life over the last three years in lockstep with my family. Our journey has been on the more extreme end of the spectrum than most in early recovery, but even navigating the hardships that most everyone faces such as job problems, financial concerns, and other aspects of life has become an honor in itself. To not crumble under the weight of life, to actually find yourself strengthening and drawing closer to God through these hardships, is something I never imagined being able to discover in my life.

3. Finding power in living an honest life
   Let me be straight with you about this one. Living an honest life, focused on transparency and seeking the truth, is a horrible short-term strategy. Especially if you work in corporate America. Doubly if that corporate America job is in financial services. However, there is incredible long-term power in living honestly. No one has anything to hold against you. Your fear of man slowly starts to dissipate, and you establish yourself on a new foundation that can stand any attack or hardship. What is someone going to do, blackmail me for being an alcoholic? I think I’m comfortable with anything that will come on that front.

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That’s all I have for this week. It has been the greatest honor to be able to communicate with you through this channel, and I genuinely hold each and every one of you who read these posts close to my heart. Isolation and shame nearly killed me. Faith, community, connection, and a willingness to change and live honestly have saved my life. You all have played a part in that. From the depths of my heart, thank you.

Keep showing up,

Kyle Layne

P.S. Interested in joining a small advanced read group for my new book Chasing Control? Find out more, and sign up here. You’ll get early access to the book (for free) and insight into the launch! Advanced readers like yourself are a huge help for self-published authors.

Jacob shares the story of his son Levi’s birth, including the silence that came over the delivery room and the unforgettable moment his wife held their newborn son and declared, “You’re perfect.” From there, we talk about the fears many parents face after a Down syndrome diagnosis: fear of the unknown, fear of whether their child will be accepted, fear of how to lead a family through a new vision for their future.

But this conversation is not only about diagnosis.

It is about what happens after.

Jacob eventually founded Dads of Down Syndrome, a growing community created to give fathers a place to be honest, encouraged, and connected. What started with a small group of dads sitting together has grown into something much larger: a movement built around presence, compassion, and the belief that these men are among “the luckiest men in the world.”

This episode is about special needs parenting, marriage, community, honest conversation among men, and the quiet power of simply showing up.

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Jacob is an incredible man, and I’m grateful he was willing to share his story here.

Keep showing up,

Kyle Layne Zibrowski

Follow the podcast on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube. While you’re there, please leave a rating or a comment. These small actions have major impacts on a podcast such as More Than Capable.

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As of yesterday, the manuscript is out of my hands, taking its final pass through production reviews. Today, I want to share a small bit of writing from the book. If you read no further, but are curious about what this project might entail, here is the best snippet from the Preface (below) that I can offer.

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This book is not a how-to-do anything manual. Instead, it is a story of control. It is the story of my own, and my family’s, fight for life. Of potential destroyed and even greater potential realized.

This has been the most exhausting, freeing, brutal, and meaningful work that I have ever done in my life. I was helped along the way by so many of you, and I can’t wait to share more details with you all soon.

I will be setting up a very small advance reader group once the book is in a production ready state. If interested, you can find more details here.

With that, I give you the first sneak peek at Chasing Control: From Bottle, To Death, To Life.

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Preface

Ordinary and obsessive.

I’m not sure if these two traits square, but that is exactly how I would describe myself.

I sought the comfort and obscurity of living an ordinary life.

Yet, I was dominated by obsessions.

Fire was one obsession. I was drawn to fire as an element for its lessons and power.

Fire is the actualization of potential—the result of a balance of elements and conditions—fuel, air, and, finally, a spark. I can think deeply as I stare into flames. I easily become lost, searching the dancing flames for their hidden lessons.

The heat, visuals, and crackling of the wood offer the ultimate multisensory experience, bringing me into the depths of what it means to be a human.

Fire, when controlled, provides security and warmth.

Fire, when free to run wild, can scourge a landscape, seemingly stripping it of all potential for life.

Yet that destruction can cleanse. It can burn away that which is no longer useful.

I like to think about times when our ancestors lived with more connection to the land. Fire was revered. Fire gave them life. Communities gathered and tales were told around a fire, with the pulsing embers breathing life into the story’s characters as lessons were passed from one generation to the next.

They must have understood their delicate relationship with fire—the salvation it provides and the destruction it can bring forth when unleashed.

Did they understand that control was never fully in their hands?

Control was my unnamed obsession.

As time progressed, men and women have been honored for their achievements and contributions to our species’ well-being—often by advancing the notion of control over ourselves and our environment. Many of these have been truly remarkable achievements. But I can’t help but wonder: Have we lost touch with a truth that was made apparent to us as we stared into the dancing flames of a fire, night after night? Have we unintentionally fooled ourselves into thinking we control more about our lives than we actually do?

When I felt a loss of control, I reacted in a simple, yet destructive manner: rage. Early in life, it was relatively harmless. When I wasn’t able to control the outcome as I desired, my rage flashed forward. There were dings and nicks out of nearly everything that I owned.

But when alcohol got introduced to my life and I struggled to control my insatiable desire to consume, the rage turned inward and onto the relationships I held closest to me in life. That rage unleashed an all-consuming inferno inside me that started destroying everything. The consequences of wrestling for control grew in severity—until both my sanity and life were on the line.

I had an incredible life. I recognized that even when young. Much of my descent was reflecting back on my life and wondering:

Why do I feel so lost and in despair?

Why can’t I find happiness and peace?

I have it so well, I am loved, I had passions—why am I struggling?

My inability to answer these questions only fed the growing fire within me. I felt pathetic to be struggling, so I searched harder for ways to control my drinking and suppress the raging inferno of self-loathing and chaos. I isolated. No one could know the depths of my descent. I didn’t believe anyone could possibly understand.

By the time I recognized my loss of control with alcohol, I felt like my realization had come too late to save anything. The raging fire of chaos that had built throughout my life had now burned the landscape of my life without any hope of recovery.

Yet somehow, there was still hope. I was spared. I am lucky, and I know it. My life turned into the ultimate blessing, an about-face that to this day still feels like a miracle, even if this blessing also brought with it unimaginable hardships, burdens, and loss.

This book is not a how-to-do anything manual. Instead, it is a story of control. It is the story of my own, and my family’s, fight for life. Of potential destroyed and even greater potential realized.

If this story, my family’s story, can provide you with enough hope to persevere one hour longer, to discover the gift that is waiting for us in every single day that we are given, then the effort to write all this out was worth it.

Maybe you’ll see a little bit of yourself as you stare into the flames of this story. I am, after all, just an ordinary person, impossible to discover among the crowds and statistics.

But ordinary as I might be—and ordinary as you might feel—each of us is called to realize the greatest potential in our lives, yet few do.

And for that reason, this is no ordinary story.

This one felt worth breaking that rhythm.

Chris Burns was winning Emmys, working on 77 episodes of Duck Dynasty and built relationships with the likes of Robert Downey Jr.—he had built a career at the highest level of television.

And at the same time, Chris was losing control of his own life.

We sat down to talk through what it actually looked like to live in that tension:

• Success on the outside, collapse underneath

• Addiction as a solution—and what it was solving

• The moment his body gave out

• Facing death and waiting for a transplant

• What it takes to rebuild after surviving a brush with death

There are conversations that are informative. And then there are conversations that are honest.

This is the latter.

If you’re interested in following the podcast, you can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

Keep showing up,

Kyle Layne

In this conversation, I take time with Luke Thorkildsen of Weatherby to talk through the long, often uncomfortable process of building a life rooted in faith, family, and responsibility.

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We get into the reality of marriage—not the version people like to present, but the one that requires ownership, humility, and a willingness to work when things get difficult. Luke shares what it looked like to move from trying to fix others to taking responsibility for himself, and how that shift changed everything.

We also talk about rejection, career uncertainty, and what it means to build something meaningful without a clear path forward.

This conversation isn’t about quick answers. It’s about the slow, daily work of becoming someone who can actually carry the life they say they want.

If you’re trying to build something that lasts, this one is worth your time.

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What an uncomfortable question to face. You may be shifting or squirming in your seat as it sinks in. I hated this question. I ran from it and lied through my teeth about it for years.

Sometimes we’re lucky and well-practiced enough that we can shoot off an answer to that question with clarity and confidence.

“My name is Kyle, I’m an alcoholic.”

I have said that statement enough times that I don’t question it. It rolls off my tongue quite easily these days. Shortly after entering recovery, I began to, almost by accident, form what became five practices that helped me stay in the practice of recovery each day.

In the world of recovery, people started asking me another uncomfortable question: “What does your recovery look like?” I never knew what the hell they meant by that question. I started listening to others. Many talked of programs they were members of, activities or hobbies they picked up, or religious organizations they joined. But I noticed something early. The few people who had long-term recovery spanning numerous decades had something in common. They talked about work. They talked about breaking things down into manageable challenges they could face each day. And they talked about growth.

I followed those people. I listened, I worked, and I experimented. I found what worked and kept working those things. Slowly, the practices formed themselves. Much more than a list, they are the way I live each day. They expand well beyond the realm of addiction recovery. They are completely transferable, bound to no place or set routine. They helped us navigate the challenge of loss. They also led me to unexpectedly answer that question of “Who are you?” in a way I never anticipated.

Movement
Awe
Vision
Community
Faith

The practices are simple, yet powerful. They are approachable, but challenging. They are routine, yet boundless. They are forgiving, yet demand everything from you. They can be continually practiced, but will never be perfected.

The five practices train you daily to separate what you can control from what you must let go. Quite by accident, they allowed me to realize my true identity versus anchoring my identity to capabilities or outcomes.

Look back at that opening question again. Ask yourself how many “I am…” statements that ran through your mind ended with something you’ve accomplished with your talents, something you own, or a capability you have.

The practices unknowingly led me to realize the singular, foundational piece of identity everything is built upon. Initially, I viewed them simply as a tool to grant me daily reprieve from alcohol. It turned out that the power that lay within the daily practices was much more significant.

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Each practice will be explored in detail over the coming months. I had incorporated many of these practices in my life when I was battling alcoholism to no avail. I worked out, journaled, and searched for gratitude. But those didn’t work. We’ll explore why and highlight the subtle but required shifts that have allowed these practices to have a profound impact.

Keep showing up,

Kyle Layne

There are moments in life that split everything into a before and after.

For Kenny White, that moment came in an instant. A fall. A broken neck. A life that, by all accounts, should have ended the way it had been going.

But it didn’t.

Instead, it forced a level of clarity most people spend a lifetime avoiding.

What followed wasn’t just physical recovery — it was a complete reconstruction of identity. From addiction and chaos… to faith, family, and purpose.

This conversation explores:

• The slow drift into alcoholism (and why it never feels sudden)

• The psychological toll of trauma and recovery

• A moment of clarity that changed everything

• What it actually means to take radical ownership of your life

• And how rebuilding begins when there’s nothing left to hide behind

This isn’t a story about motivation.

It’s about what happens when you’re forced to face the truth — and choose something different.

Keep showing up,

Kyle

Now, I can’t watch a single show or bit of content without noticing the details of their lighting, background, and camera work. It’s those small learnings in life that catch you off guard and really add some flavor to your day.

The beauty of it all is how little it actually matters for the incredible conversations I’ve been blessed to have.

Grant Hankins: Taking the Harder Path and Finding Identity

Take Grant Hankins, for example. A kid raised in rural Colorado who felt destined for a hard life of alcohol, drugs, and jail. But hockey saved him. Or at least, for a time it saved him. It brought him to new places and removed him from the path that felt inevitable. But, like everything, hockey came to an end, too. We talked identity, navigating hardship, discipline, and taking the more difficult, narrow road.

Full episode with Grant is on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Morgan Hampel: Transitions, Legacy, and Military Stigmas of Mental Health

I recognize how lucky I am to have a group of incredible friends doing incredible things. Very few exemplify this more than Morgan Hampel. Morgan and I became friends in undergrad, where he was a roommate of mine during an extremely lax period of time, my senior year. Morgan was destined for greatness, even then, and the number of times he would walk into our room with me sitting there (generally not yet fully dressed) watching Queen Live in Montreal is slightly embarrassing, if not for the greatness of that entire performance.

Morgan went on to navigate some truly incredible feats (and literally navigate large ships) in our time since undergrad. He worked through hardship associated with seemingly big changes in his professional life as he went on to become a Naval Officer, went through the incredibly rigorous Navy Nuke program, and then made a seemingly massive career change once again as he eyed replacing his Naval income upon leaving his active duty service.

Full episode with Morgan on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

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Tyler Moon: Second Chances, Talking with God, and Service to Others

Most recently, there was Tyler Moon, a self-described ordinary suburban dad who had an extraordinary moment in his life that changed everything. Kept alive by a group of strangers in the middle of the street in St. Paul back in 2019, Tyler recounts his road to healing, the lessons it taught him, and how he views his responsibility to share and help others.

Tyler lives authentically and unapologetically, a refreshing stance in today’s world of masks, false narratives, and self-driven amplification of personal achievements. One thing I didn’t expect to connect on was Tyler’s short, but exhausting, bout with living a life built on a web of lies.

Full episode with Tyler on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

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Through the last month or so, I have felt honored and privileged to be sitting on the receiving end of these individuals’ messages. It has humbled me and pushed me to be better, to focus on those things that truly matter in life and make an impact on others.

Lighting these days isn’t as much of a problem as when I started. Not because I mastered the art of studio lighting, but because I learned to focus on what actually matters: the conversation, the lessons, and what it means to show up for yourself so you can show up for others.

Keep showing up,

Kyle

He was 25 years old. Healthy. Three months away from his wedding day.

The memory of what happened next never came back.

What followed instead were fragments — stories told by others, moments pieced together by family, doctors, and strangers who stepped forward when it mattered most. CPR in the middle of a race. An AED. A medically induced coma. A long and uncertain path back.

But survival was only the beginning of the story.

In this conversation, Tyler reflects on what it means to wake up after a moment that nearly took your life. We talk about identity, marriage under pressure, faith in moments of uncertainty, and how experiences like this reshape the way we understand purpose.

Tyler now leads Living Proof Leadership and recently released his book More Than a Conqueror, where he reflects more deeply on the lessons that emerged from that day.

This conversation is about survival, but more than that, it’s about the question many people face after adversity:

What do you do with the life you’ve been given?

“You gotta ask Pete about the coffee.”

I looked up to see Jack, a man I had only known five days since he checked into rehab, exhale deeply and wipe the tears away that were streaming down his face as he maneuvered into a seat behind me on the bus.

Right behind him, Pete threw himself into the seat next to me. Alcohol and a life at sea had weathered Pete. He spoke with a strong stutter as a by-product of his years of drinking that often caused him to close down conversation in frustration. Through broken sentences over the past ten days Pete showed me how tough men can still have a caring heart.

I could tell something was stewing in him as he sat with his left fist clenched staring at the back of the seat in front of him.

“Go ahead, just ask.” Jack encouraged me from behind with a nudge on my back as he picked up on my hesitation.

“Pete,” I spoke reluctantly, not knowing what was to come, “how was the coffee at this meeting?”

Pete’s head snapped over and his eyes bore directly into me.

“That fu.. that… that…” Pete was growing more agitated at his failure to produce words.

He tried a different approach, “He… he… brought…”

Still the words wouldn’t come to him.

Sensing his frustration, and knowing the punchline, Jack spoke up from behind.

“The guy was walking the coffee around to give people refills mid-meeting,” he exhaled, still catching his breath, as I glanced to see Pete at a near boiling point of rage at the retelling of the tale.

“Pete extended his hand with his coffee mug in it and for some reason the guy set the hot pot of coffee directly on Pete’s extended hand like his hand was some pot holder and just rested it there.” Jack unsuccessfully held a spurt of laughter back before starting back in, “And what did you tell him when that happened Pete?”

Without hesitation Pete screamed, “GOD DAMN IT ASSHOLE THAT FUCKING HURTS!”

The words hung in the air between us all as Pete’s eyes were lit with a fire from the recent memory.

I felt something well up deep within me and come skyrocketing to the forefront of my consciousness. I controlled none of it after witnessing Pete’s outburst and beautifully perfect string of sailor approved cuss words. A burst of laughter erupted uncontrollably from us all.

Pete’s head snapped around, confused at the outburst from those of us around him who had heard the story.

“Pete.” Jack said from behind me as he wiped away new tears running down his face, “You didn’t stutter.”

In an instant Pete’s eyes changed. The confusion and anger that had been there were replaced with a sparkle as a smile cracked his saltwater-leathered face. He began to laugh. His laughter fed ours, which fed his back again. Suddenly people were gasping for air and everyone was wiping away tears. I felt a joy within me and lightness in my heart that I had not felt for years.

The bus doors closed and the engine fired up. The residual laughter would come forth quietly as each person replayed the event in their mind. Pete’s smile could not be wiped from his face.

Finally, after a deep exhale someone said the thing we were all thinking.

“Man, it feels good to be able to feel something again.”

Life moves fast. Don’t forget to laugh along the way.

Keep showing up,

Kyle Layne Zibrowski

We pulled into the dark, but familiar, parking lot in silence. Another week had passed. It was time to check in on our unborn daughter’s growth. Or so we hoped.

I don’t know if we can keep doing this.

The thought arose as I found a parking spot we had frequented and pulled our vehicle in. It had presented itself before. I knew it to be false that we would persevere and keep working through these moments.

I recognized it for what it was—fear. Fear gripped my stomach in a knot. I could sense the emotional tension rising up into my chest.

Putting the vehicle in park, I extended my hand to the seat next to me and turned to look at Alyssa. We had done this enough times that words did not need to be spoken. I saw fear in her eyes. I wondered what thoughts were running through her mind. Regardless of the cascade of thoughts and emotions, she firmly grasped my hand and we both took a breath.

“God, we selfishly want to hear Lucy’s heartbeat today. But, if that is not a part of your plan, please grant us the strength of acceptance and faith.”

Despite the number of times we had said that prayer together before each appointment, I still got choked up. Tears would be wiped away from both Alyssa and my eyes as we readied ourselves with one last kiss before stepping out of the car.

Then, with little else but faith and a willingness to do anything for our daughter who continued the fight for her life, we exited the vehicle for another visit to the specialist.

We were given fifty-seven days between leaving rehab and discovering Lucy’s health concerns. Fifty-seven days to better understand the pillars. Fifty-seven days to strengthen them, completely unaware of how much load they would have to bear once the discovery was made.

Fifty-seven days of deliberate preparation, challenged in an instant that changed the course of our lives forever.

We didn’t get to choose which pillars would be tested. All of them were subjected to the most intense pressure that I could have ever imagined.

Your body feels it, your mind almost constantly questions your limits.
Your emotions surge.
Your faith is put on trial every single day.

Through those moments, the pillars either hold or crumble. The pressure leaves no in-between.

Challenging ourselves physically, we had exposed ourselves to false limits our minds had set in an attempt to protect us. We had strengthened our ability to tolerate stress. By working through those limits, we had readied ourselves to keep showing up—to walk through doors that held answers we weren’t sure we wanted.

We routinely worked on acceptance. Emotions would hit seemingly out of nowhere, and instead of suppressing or isolating, we allowed them to run their course. We sought companionship in each other, growing in our ability to check in with ourselves and one another as we moved forward.

We prayed. We learned what it meant to bring our worries and fears to God during some of the darkest and most confusing moments of our lives. We found faith, trust, connection, and hope during a time when we could have felt chillingly abandoned. We recognized that our selfish desires might not be aligned with His plan for us. Yet we remained willing and ready to take action and walk through doors when He opened them for us.

We kept working, kept strengthening each pillar. Then came the moment where all of the unknowns, all of the questions, about Lucy’s potential life dropped away. A single door opened—one we didn’t want to walk through but knew we had no choice. A reality that every parent who has lost a child has faced and wanted to run from.

We found, once again, that we didn’t rise to any moment on this new journey of loss.
We simply stood on the foundation that we had been building.

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In quiet moments, I considered a reality where I hadn’t found recovery. Where I hadn’t built the pillars. The cost would have extended far beyond my own grief.

Alyssa and I have spoken it plainly: she would have lost two family members during that season.

Instead, we steadied ourselves on the foundation that we had built. We talked, we listened, and we prayed. We found both joy and sorrow in moments that caught us off guard. We found forgiveness and grace.

You do not get to choose when life applies pressure. When the storm hits, you rarely have the space to build. Your foundation will either hold or crumble. What you practice in calm becomes what you stand on in hardship.

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It requires the discipline to feel and experience without escaping.
It requires confronting limits and seeking truth beyond them.
It requires surrender to something greater than yourself.

Keep showing up.

Kyle Layne Zibrowski

In this conversation, I sit down with Morgan Hampel — former Navy Nuclear Surface Warfare Officer and real estate operator — to talk about the pivots that shape a life.

We cover military leadership, risk, missed signals, and the responsibility we carry for the people around us.

Morgan shares:

• What it was like growing up as the grandson of a Holocaust survivor

• The military leader who forced him to raise his standard

• The conversation he wishes he handled differently

• Why saying “sorry” isn’t always enough

• Raising $1M in 90 days on his first deal

• The discipline required to build momentum

• The upward spiral: sleep, health, testosterone, ownership

This conversation is about responsibility.

Responsibility to your legacy.
Responsibility to your friends.
Responsibility to your own potential.

The cost of inaction isn’t abstract. It’s personal.

Craig was back. His broad-shouldered frame loomed over me with his hand extended, waiting for me to respond to his demand. My eyes darted between four cards laid out before me on the floor. Fifteen minutes earlier, I had written My Marriage, Recovery, My Family, and Career on those cards, not understanding why we were being asked to list the things that mattered most to us.

My eyes stuck to the Career card. I reached for it and handed it to Craig.

“I’ll be back,” he said as he sidestepped to the person sitting next to me, who already had their index card extended and ready.

We had been at this for only fifteen minutes, but they felt agonizing, building toward this moment. Every pass Craig made required you to give away one more thing you valued in life. Though purely theoretical, I dreaded this next round from the start.

My eyes scanned the last three cards, cycling through them countless times. I hoped for a momentary flash of insight, but I was met with silence in my mind.

Suddenly, Craig appeared before me once again, his full-sleeved tattooed arm extending an open hand in front of me, demanding a choice.

“Gun to your head,” he said, quietly this time with a hint of caring support in his voice. Somehow, he seemed to sense my agony.

I reached down, picked up a card, and lifted it toward him. The word Recovery stared back at me.

“Ok,” Craig said in a fatherly tone that made me wonder if I had just caused disappointment, discouragement, or quiet anger.

I sat pondering my selection. Before his next time around the circle, Craig stopped and centered himself at the whiteboard and faced our group.

“By this point, only two of you have held onto your Recovery card over other things that you value in life,” he exclaimed, “so I think we can draw this exercise to a close.”

“Let me be clear with you,” Craig said, giving pause to ensure everyone’s attention was drawn towards him, “whatever you chose to value above your recovery, you should plan to lose.” Craig paused, giving everyone time to glance at the cards by their feet.

He took a breath and continued, “And the cornerstone of your recovery will require you to develop a real and personal relationship with God.”

Bullshit, I thought. I felt my face flush with anger. I don’t need God as a part of my recovery story.

Looking up, I met Craig’s eyes and sensed he could see the discomfort and conflict in me. Somewhere, buried in the pile of cards he held in his hand, I had handed my recovery over to him.

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That lesson stayed with me. I couldn’t reconcile the idea that I was supposed to prioritize my recovery over every other aspect, every other person, in my life. And that God was to be the center of my recovery journey.

No, I thought, it just couldn’t be true.

But things changed. They changed slowly at first, as I replayed Craig’s lesson in my mind. They continued to shift as I heard people’s stories of how finding a higher power gave them the capacity to endure hardship in recovery.

Then, all at once, it completely shifted—triggered by a simple statement from an old man I will likely never meet again.

“I don’t want a God that I can understand.”

Those words undid every defense I had built. Nearly two decades of attempting to reason and intellectualize God into a box that I could understand were completely upended. And the most shocking revelation was freedom. I finally felt the permission to approach God and begin turning things over to Him.

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The Spiritual Pillar is finding the faith to turn everything over to God: fears, worries, victories, defeats, shortcomings, and my recovery. It is finding the patience and perseverance to travel difficult roads, knowing you’re not alone. It’s finding the humility to accept that God’s plan for you might not align with your own selfish desires. It’s about building the capacity within yourself to serve others.

I finally came to understand that building my Spiritual Pillar, a real and personal relationship with God, wasn’t strictly about church attendance or adherence to a certain denomination. It’s not moral superiority, ego-driven performatives, passive faith or evangelizing with words.

It is about aligning your actions with the way that God intended and instructed you to act. It was about me finally listening, after years of pushing back.

It started simple, but these simple actions formed the bedrock upon which the Spiritual Pillar is built. I prayed. I worked on communicating with God to rebuild the relationship I had turned my back on. I didn’t memorize extensive scripture, but instead I found three simple moments each day where I could connect with God.

Every morning, “Thy will, not mine.”
To quiet my ego and trust that God had a plan.

As anxiety, stress or challenges arose, “Worry not.”
To trust His plan and release what was never mine to control.

To close each day, “Thank you.”
To remind myself that every day—whether filled with struggle, monotony, or treasure—was a gift.

The relationship grew out of these three foundational moments of connecting with God.

While the three pillars may stand in symbolic unity, I found that the Spiritual Pillar is the bedrock of a meaningful existence. If grounded and strengthened, it holds when it feels like all else has fallen apart.

After hardship, if it remains standing, life can be rebuilt around it.

Without it:
Discipline becomes ego.
Emotional awareness becomes self-absorption.
Recovery becomes fragile.

This is not built through performative action. It is built in the quiet moments. It is built in spaces where you can sense a higher power’s presence. It is, strictly between you and God.

No one else can turn your life over to Him for you. That’s the work you must do to create the bedrock all pillars are built upon—for a lifetime and beyond.

Keep showing up,

Kyle Layne Zibrowski

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Whoosh. Silence. Whoosh. Silence. Whoosh. Silence.

I can’t do this, I thought as my muscles and lungs ached. You did enough yesterday, just end it early today.

The thought entered my mind out of nowhere. A small smile crossed my face. I had faced these thoughts before in this situation and was becoming familiar with navigating through them. I wasn’t going to give them the grace to linger.

No, I can do this.

Every strain against the rower was proof my initial thoughts were wrong. I wasn’t finished. As the distance counter raced above my targeted goal, I let my body slide forward and the handle snapped back into its holding position. I breathed heavily. I noticed a gentle breeze move across my face as the rowing machine’s fan cycled down, its residual push bouncing off the walls of the tiny room.

It felt good to feel something again.

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Glancing up, I looked out the window toward the courtyard. Cigarette packs sat on tables and people milled about, waiting for the lunch hour to hit. I would go out and join my friends soon, but my pre-lunch ritual was something I looked forward to completing first each day.

My mind felt calm as I watched the scene outside. I could sense I was tolerating stress better, and I hadn’t experienced a single issue sleeping at night since starting this rowing ritual.

In my last few years of drinking, I could feel myself slipping physically. There was the obvious metric of the scale, which crept frustratingly upward every year. By the end, I stopped checking because I didn’t like the feedback it was giving me.

But there were other signs I was faltering physically. I felt a growing tightness of anxiety that seemed to always grip me. Sleep constantly evaded me, and the smallest amount of stress would send me on a wild search for alcohol to ease the burden.

Sitting on that rower as sweat ran down my face for nearly the twentieth day in a row, I was beginning to connect with the ramifications of this ritual. I was starting to realize how interconnected the mind and body are, and how ignoring one of those components became detrimental to me toward the end of my drinking days.

I smiled, thinking back on the excuses that had run through my head moments earlier as I watched sweat fall to the floor. I took a deep breath in, exhaled, and found myself laughing out loud, sitting alone on the rower.

I was laughing because I was finally seeing that the Physical Pillar is a truth seeker.

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Gliding back and forth on that rower each day became an opportunity for me to experience discomfort. When discomfort hit, the self-talk began. The self-talk looked for a way to reason with me, presenting an opportunity to choose—is the barrier I’m constructing in my head real, or is it an excuse to seek comfort? Making the choice to challenge the barrier then led to increased capacity.

As the number of encounters with this ritual increased, I was learning that the boundaries I perceived were often not true. I was working to gain the wisdom to discern between a genuine constraint and those that my mind simply created in an attempt to protect me, even though relenting meant limiting my long-term potential.

After two and a half years of lying to hide my drinking, I was committed to living my life honestly and in pursuit of the truth. The Physical Pillar became the mechanism through which I sought the truth. It gave me the repetition to encounter potential limiting beliefs every single day and to grow in my wisdom to choose to change course or to work through the discomfort.

Encountering these self-fabricated excuses daily, in a controlled setting, led to growth and improved my mental well being, self-talk, and how I perceive challenges. It’s so much more than exercise, so much deeper than the numbers on the scale or body composition. It’s real change that is grounded in the pursuit of truth.

You can find this anywhere in your life. Look for moments where your self-talk fires up strongest, and view them as chances to encounter resistance and discover growth. Face up to your self-talk and challenge your perceived limits to find out if they are real or self-fabricated.

Live life honestly and in pursuit of the truth.

Search for the wisdom required to assess whether a constraint is real, or if you’re simply giving yourself an excuse to avoid the discomfort that comes with growth.

Keep showing up.

Kyle Layne (Kyle Zibrowski)

They accept their upbringing.
They accept their environment.
They accept the quiet belief that this is just how it is.

In this conversation, Grant Hankins and I talk about what it looks like to challenge that belief — not through motivation or slogans, but through discipline, identity, and daily choices.

Grant’s story isn’t about escaping hardship.
It’s about refusing to let hardship make decisions for him.

We talk about:

• How environment shapes us — and how it doesn’t have to define us

• Discipline as a way to build confidence, not punishment

• The cost of people-pleasing and peacekeeping

• Identity after sports, career shifts, and major life changes

• Why comparison quietly sabotages growth

• Choosing the harder path when the easier one feels inevitable

If you’ve felt stuck — not dramatically, but subtly — this conversation is an invitation to examine where you may have stopped challenging the story you’re living inside.

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