 Entrepreneur, Author, Marketing Junkie, and Trail Enthusiast Founded, built, and sold two companies. Dedicated to safe trail & recreational marking, reducing damages to buried infrastructure globally and recognized as an industry expert. Scott has published over 100 articles in multiple publications and spoke in the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Australia, Italy, the UK, and Turkey. With 10 patents on marking products. Scott is passionate about marketing, new ideas, and helping others. • American Trails Board Member since 2019 • Vistage Legacy Award winner: 2023 • Founded Rhino Marking & Protection Systems in 1990, sold in 2021 • Founded Infrastructure Resources in 2003, sold in 2024 • Founded the Global Excavation Safety Conference • Co-founded the Oceania Damage Prevention Conference • Founder of the dp-PRO, formerly Damage Prevention Professional Magazine • Created the 811 Runs and 811 Mudder public awareness events • Created the annual Excavation Safety Guide (over 10 million published) • Common Ground Alliance Jim Barron Award: 2007 Publishing two books in 2026. One book, Jimmy Buffett: Brand Genius, is an in-depth case study of building an authentic lifestyle brand, and why this marketing strategy can be so effective. This book mixes in plenty of stories about the events that shaped the brand and lifestyle along my personal experiences. The second book, Holding Back Disaster, was written with Benjamin Dierker. This book shines a spotlight on the value of our nation's utility infrastructure and the difficult task of protecting it. What made you realize Jimmy Buffett was more than a musician, but actually one of the greatest authentic lifestyle brand creators of our time? As I started to see restaurants and hotels pop up, I could see the theme was consistently focused on a tropical escape, not Jimmy or his music. This made me realize that he understood marketing and business and was not doing this as a vanity project. Jimmy Buffett built an empire without seeming “corporate.” What do you think he understood about authenticity that many modern brands miss? I believe he realized a few things that helped him avoid being corporate
Why do you believe Buffett’s connection with his audience became so emotional and enduring across generations? Because he knew his music, books and brands allowed people to instantly be on a mental vacation. Their connection to him and his brand was tied to Jimmy being real. He also realized that it was more powerful to let people's imagination create their own image of a tropical paradise which is why he never tried to define where Margaritaville was. In researching the book, what surprised you most about the business side of Jimmy Buffett’s career? That he had a journalism degree and his first job after college was being a reporter for Billboard Magazine, which taught him a lot about the music industry. It was also interesting to learn that he was such an incredibly hard-working guy, which is very contrary to the lifestyle his music portrays. Buffett created an entire world around his music, from restaurants to resorts to merchandise. Which move do you think was the smartest strategically? That is a tough call. Both the restaurants and the hotels & resorts are phenomenal ideas because both promote the Margaritaville lifestyle brand while making money. In essence they are extremely powerful marketing tools that generate profits, not expenses. They also use an asset light model for the hotels & resorts which has allowed them to grow fast without huge cash drains. Overall the real key to the marketing and business success is the fact that they know they are selling and emotion, not Jimmy's name. What can entrepreneurs and authors learn from the way Jimmy Buffett built community instead of just building customers? If you want to build an authentic lifestyle brand, the authenticity of the brand must be a company-wide culture; it cannot be faked. Even if you cannot build an authentic lifestyle brand you can build an emotional connection with your customers and work to make them feel like belong to your tribe. Buffett’s brand represented freedom, escape, and lifestyle. Why do you think people were so hungry for that message? Almost everyone's lives are hectic and fairly stressful. Many people do not have the ability to live Jimmy's lifestyle or get to a beautiful tropical beach very often if at all. Jimmy's music puts people in their stress-free paradise without getting on a plane or breaking the bank. This is especially true in the U.S. where we have much less vacation time than most of the Western World. I heard over and over than going to a Buffett show allowed people to be on that tropical vacation for several hours. For many people his music is played in fun settings like vacation, boating, etc. so when they hear it they are transported to that time and place mentally. Even Niko Moon described that exact scenario at a recent concert in Minneapolis. Was there a specific moment in Jimmy Buffett’s career where you believe he transitioned from entertainer to cultural phenomenon? No, it takes longevity and consistency to become a cultural phenomenon. Obviously the release of Margaritaville gave him a base, but Jimmy frequently talked about being on Johnny Carson in 1981 (plus 7 more times) and opening for the Eagles on their Hotel California tour as two things that expanded his audience dramatically. Jimmy Buffett remained relevant for decades without chasing trends. How did he manage to evolve while staying true to himself? The great part about having an authentic lifestyle brand is that you must continue to be yourself and not chase trends. Jimmy's music topics changed slightly over the years, but the underlying theme did not change. Jimmy's evolution was more about expanding his creative outlets to best-selling books, creating a musical, and many on brand business expansions like Radio Margaritaville, Margaritaville TV, Mailboat Records, and all his Margaritaville brands. This allowed him to evolve creatively without changing as a person. It must have been much easier to always be authentic than to try and modify your style and life based on trends. Everyone he worked him and crossed paths with says that Jimmy always made things fun. As Jane Fonda said at the Jimmy Buffett Tribute concert Jimmy had the “ability, like Tinkerbell, to sprinkle happiness wherever he went.” After writing this book, what do you think Jimmy Buffett’s greatest legacy will ultimately be: the music, the business empire, or the feeling he created for people? That is the magic of Jimmy, so cannot really separate those three things. The music and the feeling it creates will last as long as people want to escape their daily lives or spend time on a boat or beach. The business empire looks like it has an long life ahead in large part because Jimmy and John Cohlan had the foresight to build a brand based on an emotion, noy on Jimmy's name. Website: https://jimmybuffettbrandgenius.com/
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 Audrey Faust is a financial business coach, mother, wife, and CEO of Audrey Faust Consulting. With over 25 years in the finance world, she founded her company to help women financially empower themselves and grow their businesses profitably. Audrey holds an accounting degree, an MBA, and is a certified NeuroCoach, bringing a wealth of knowledge and personal experience to her coaching practice. What does the open-ended “B” in You Are an Abundant B reveal about identity, and how does choosing your own definition influence the way you show up in business and life? The "B" is intentional. I wanted every woman who picked up this book to pause right there, before page one, and ask herself: what does that mean to me? Because identity is a decision you get to make. You do not need to earn it. You do not wait until the revenue catches up or the fear quiets down. You decide first, and the evidence follows. When a woman chooses her own definition of what it means to be abundant, she stops outsourcing her power to her bank account. That shift changes everything about how she leads, prices, sells, and invests in herself. How do subconscious beliefs about money quietly shape financial outcomes, even when someone is taking consistent external action? This is the question I wish more women were asking. You can have the right offer, the right strategy, the right mentor, and still hit the same ceiling month after month. That is not a strategy problem. That is a nervous system problem. Subconscious beliefs are running in the background like software you never installed intentionally. They determine what you charge, whether you follow up, how you respond when a client says no, and whether you actually open your financial reports. Until those beliefs are identified and rewired, the external action will always be working against an invisible current. In what ways does Audrey Faust’s blend of mindset, neuroscience, and financial strategy challenge the traditional “work harder to earn more” narrative? The "work harder" story is not just exhausting. It is financially inaccurate. I spent years as a CFO watching brilliant women come to me after grinding themselves almost into the ground while their profit margins stayed flat. More hours is not the variable. More clarity, more capacity, more energetic alignment with what you are building. The work harder message is everywhere in our culture, but the real question is: how can I work smarter? Neuroscience gives us a framework for understanding why we think this way in the first place. Your brain is a prediction machine. It will recreate the financial patterns it was wired to expect, regardless of how hard you hustle, until you give it new evidence to work from. That is what this book is about. How does nervous system regulation play a role in attracting opportunities rather than chasing them, and why is this often overlooked in entrepreneurship? Because entrepreneurship rewards visible hustle, we celebrate the grind. What we do not talk about is how a dysregulated nervous system literally contracts your perception. When you are in a stress response, your brain narrows its focus to survival. You miss opportunities that are right in front of you. You make reactive decisions. You repel the very clients you are trying to attract because desperation has an energy that can be felt by the people around you. Nervous system regulation is not a wellness practice. For a business owner, it is a competitive advantage most are not even aware of. What is the significance of the “Dishing the T.E.A.” framework (Thoughts, Energy, Alignment), and how might it create a repeatable process for shifting into abundance? T.E.A. is the process made practical. Most women understand that mindset matters, but they often struggle to find their way back to it when life gets hard. This framework gives you something to return to and quickly get yourself to a better place. You start with your Thoughts because everything begins there. Then you address the Energy, because you and everyone around you can feel it and it matters more than most people admit. And then you look at Alignment, because being out of alignment will affect both your thoughts and your energy in ways that quietly sabotage your results. When all three are working together, abundance stops being something you chase and starts being something you simply attract. How can women entrepreneurs distinguish between aligned action and action driven by fear, scarcity, or external pressure? The body knows before the mind admits it. Aligned action feels expansive and exciting, even when it is uncomfortable or a little scary. Fear-driven action feels urgent, tight, and done simply because someone told you to. One of the most powerful questions I give my clients is: am I doing this because I am genuinely excited, or because I think it will get me something I want? Those are not the same thing, and they produce very different results. Strategy built on scarcity will always have a ceiling. What does the book suggest about the relationship between self-worth and net worth, and how can shifting one directly impact the other? They are not separate conversations. Your net worth is a reflection of what you believe you are worth receiving, keeping, and growing. I have seen women with seven-figure revenue living in quiet financial terror because their self-worth never caught up with their income. And I have seen women at $300,000 make a single identity-level shift and double their revenue within a year without adding a single new offer. When you raise the floor on what you believe you deserve, your financial decisions change. Your prices change, your energy changes, and your life changes. How do practices like visualization, tapping, and brain priming work together to rewire limiting beliefs and reinforce a new financial identity? Each one works on a different layer. Brain priming is the daily signal you send your subconscious mind to put your goals and desires on autopilot. Visualization activates the same neural pathways as lived experience, which is why athletes have used it for decades. Tapping, or EFT, works on the somatic layer, releasing the emotional charge stored in the body around a belief so that new ones can actually land. Used together, they are not a spiritual practice. They are a neurological one. You are literally building new circuitry in your brain so you can get what you want in a way that feels easy. Why do many entrepreneurs plateau at a certain income level, and what internal shifts are required to break through that ceiling? The plateau is almost never about the offer. It is about the upper limit. There is a concept in psychology around the level of success your nervous system has been conditioned to tolerate, and when you approach that edge, it creates self-sabotage that looks like distraction, procrastination, undercharging, or overdelivering. The internal shift required is to become someone who is safe being seen at the next level. That means working with the subconscious to reprogram a new identity, which is real work, and building evidence that the new one is true before you fully believe it. At its core, what is the book proposing about the balance between “magic” (energy, manifestation) and “practicality” (strategy, systems) in creating sustainable wealth? That they were never opposites. I am a CFO. I live in the numbers. And I am also someone who understands that energy, intention, and belief are part of the financial equation. The women who create sustainable wealth are not choosing between strategy and soul. They are using both. The magic without the strategy is wishful thinking. The strategy without the magic is a ceiling you will keep bumping into. You Are an Abundant B is my case for why women deserve both, and why the integration of the two is exactly what most financial conversations have been missing. Website: https://www.audreyfaustconsulting.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/manifesting_cfo/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/audrey.faust/ YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCfY8RjyfArU1m14acmR3-Lw LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/audreyfaust/ Link to purchase the book: https://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Abundant-Audrey-Faust-ebook/dp/B0GQXT9BBZ  Angela Terry is the award-winning and Amazon bestselling author of Charming Falls Apart, The Trials of Adeline Turner, and The Palace at Dusk. She is also a Chicago Marathon legacy finisher and races to raise money for PAWS Chicago—the Midwest’s largest no-kill shelter. She resides in San Francisco with her husband and two cats. How does Allison James’s sense of stability at the beginning of the novel make the sudden disruptions in her life feel even more profound? This novel is a follow-up to my first book, Charming Falls Apart, where Allison loses her job and her fiancé the day before her thirty-fifth birthday and has to rebuild her life. In Greater Expectations, she’s now living her best life as an entrepreneur with a successful business and has a supportive, loving boyfriend. So when she receives a middle-of-the-night call that her mother has suffered a heart attack, her world is shaken again. It’s also a wake call that she’s become complacent and sitting on her biggest desire—to be a mother. Life is short, and she realizes she can no longer wait on this dream. In what ways does the desire for motherhood reshape Allison’s priorities, and how does it challenge the life she has carefully built? Allison has always known she wanted to be a mother. And she’s finally with someone she considers her soulmate, but with one big hiccup—Eric doesn’t want to be a father. So she must either convince him to have kids or decide what she wants more: to stay in her current relationship and be childless or to pursue motherhood on her own. She’s also a sole business owner, so her decision to go it alone could also have consequences for the business she’s been building. How does the novel explore the tension between romantic partnership and individual life goals, especially when those goals no longer align? I was really careful not to make her partner, Eric, a villain. Whether to have children has been at the center of their relationship from when they first became serious as a couple. But then with the pandemic and their focusing on their businesses, they let their relationship coast without addressing this big issue. So now they’re forced to have the hard conversations—do they go their separate ways, does he capitulate, does Allison have to face some of her own fears, or is there some sort of compromise? There are no wrong answers, but all require tough decisions. What role does timing play in Allison’s journey—particularly the realization that certain dreams may feel urgent or fleeting? Allison is thirty-eight years old when the book opens and turns thirty-nine during the story. For a woman’s fertility, biological age is a fact; and at a certain point, each passing year lowers her chances of getting pregnant. And so with each setback, when it happens, she’s afraid that pregnancy may no longer be an option for her. How does her mother’s health crisis act as a catalyst for deeper reflection about family, legacy, and what truly matters? Allison and her mother have a difficult relationship. Her mom can be critical and pushy, but she ultimately wants what’s best for Allison. And so her mother gives her the advice that sometimes when we have a long-standing dream, we need to pursue it, even if it means sacrificing something else. What does the strain in Allison’s closest friendship reveal about how personal struggles can ripple through even the strongest relationships? Probably my favorite relationship in the book is between Allison and her best friend, Jordan. They make each other laugh and are incredibly supportive of each other. But as much as Allison wants to have children, Jordan has never wanted to have them. Allison worries Jordan can’t understand her struggles because she has never understood her desire to be a mom. And when Allison’s disappointments and losses build up, Jordan suddenly seems to be actively avoiding her. Allison thinks she’s been asking too much from her friend and is hesitant to reach out because she wants to respect Jordan’s space. But she also doesn’t want to lose their friendship. How does the story portray grief and uncertainty—not just as obstacles, but as forces that reshape identity and perspective? The Allison in this book is stronger and wiser than in the first. And so while she can still be a wallower, she rebounds faster. Despite her grief and all the uncertainty in her relationships and path to motherhood, she will fight for what she wants and doesn’t shy away from tough choices. And while she feels she shouldn’t compromise her dream for a relationship, she also accepts where she is in life and is open to reimagining what she thought becoming a mother would look like. In what ways does Allison’s entrepreneurial success both empower her and complicate her emotional journey? Because she’s had success as a sole business owner, it gives her the self-confidence that she’s capable of being a single mother. However, that’s another reality and complication—that this thing she has built, she might have to give up for better security for herself and her child. But she’s adaptable and willing to pivot career-wise if it’s in the best interest of her future family. At its core, what is the story asking about expectations—how they are formed, how they shift, and whether letting go of them can open the door to something greater? This is the primary message of the book. In life, disappointment happens because the reality of a situation didn’t match our expectations. But when we stop holding onto how we want something to play out, that opens the door for maybe even something better than what we originally imagined. Allison had a rigid view of how she expected to experience motherhood, and while she’s let go of her earlier visions of the whole suburban, white-picket-fence scenario from the first book, she still had an expectation of how she would become a mother. Once she shifts her perspective and becomes open to new possibilities, her eventual “happily ever after” turns out to be even greater than what she dreamed. What has been your favorite thing since the book was published. As an author, I write for connection. And so it’s been touching how many readers have reached out to tell me how they related to Allison’s story and to share their own stories with me. Website: https://www.angelaterry.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/angelaterryauthor/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AngelaTerryAuthor Link to purchase the book: https://www.amazon.com/Greater-Expectations-Novel-Angela-Terry/dp/B0GTQ86FWL  Mark Kaplan is the founder and CEO of HealthTruth and the creator of Neo, the world's first AI built on root cause health science. A former ATP professional tennis player who competed at Wimbledon and received the College Player of the Year award from Arthur Ashe at the 1989 US Open, Mark had a heart attack at 52 that changed everything. After surviving a widowmaker and rebuilding his health without medication, he built HealthTruth with four world-class doctors to fix what medicine will not. UNPLUGGED, his first book, became the #1 Amazon Best Seller in Heart Disease in its launch week. He lives in Stamford, Connecticut. What does your experience reveal about the gap between the external appearance of health and the internal reality of disease? The outside is not the inside. I had visible abs and invisible arterial disease. For fourteen years, seven separate blood panels flagged one number and nobody looked deeper. Nobody tested my fasting insulin. Nobody tested my inflammation. Nobody tested my Lp(a). Fitness is what you can see. Health is what is happening in your blood vessels while you sleep. I confused the two for 52 years. So does almost everyone, including most doctors. How does the shared genetic thread across three generations shape the story's deeper message about inheritance, destiny, and awareness? Genetics loaded the gun. The system never checked if I was carrying it. My son carries the same genetic markers I do. He was tested at 15. I was tested at 52, on an operating table. That is the entire message. The difference between us is not luck or destiny. It is information, delivered 37 years earlier. Genetics is not a sentence. It is a map. But a map only helps if someone shows it to you before you are lost. In what ways does the phrase "I was the fittest person in the room, and I was dying" challenge conventional definitions of fitness and wellness? Fitness measures performance. Health measures biology. A strong serve tells you nothing about your insulin. A fast mile tells you nothing about your inflammation. Our entire culture, including medicine, treats athletic performance as proof of health. It is not proof. It is a costume. Some of the greatest endurance athletes in history died of arterial disease. The engine was magnificent. The fuel lines were corroding the whole time. How do elite sports and high performance environments sometimes mask underlying health risks rather than reveal them? Three ways. First, athletes get a pass. Doctors look at a fit patient and stop investigating. Second, athletes are trained to push through symptoms. Fatigue, pain, decline. We treat warning signs as weakness to overcome. Third, performance itself hides dysfunction. You can be insulin resistant and still win matches. The scoreboard says you are fine. Your bloodwork would say otherwise, but nobody is reading it. What role does curiosity and skepticism play in your decision to question conventional medical explanations and seek alternative answers? The system gave me two words: bad luck. That is not a diagnosis. That is a shrug. I spent my life in competition, and when you lose a match, you study the tape until you understand exactly why. I applied the same discipline to my heart attack. The terror of not knowing why something happened to you is that you cannot stop it from happening again. Curiosity was not a personality trait. It was survival. How does the story reflect the tension between trusting medical authority and advocating for personal investigation into one's own health? I do not tell people to distrust their doctors. I tell them to ask better questions. My doctors were not bad people. They were trained inside a system that manages numbers instead of investigating causes. When I stopped the statin, my cardiologist told me I could die on Monday. That was not science talking. That was the system talking. You are the CEO of your own health. Your doctor is an advisor. Advisors work for you. Ask why. Demand the tests. Get the data. What does it suggest about the difference between treating symptoms and understanding root causes in chronic disease? A statin lowers a number. It never asks why the artery was inflamed in the first place. That is the entire difference. Symptom medicine asks what and writes a prescription. Root cause medicine asks why, and keeps asking until the chain ends. My cholesterol was smoke. Insulin resistance, inflammation, and genetics were the fire. We have built a trillion dollar industry around silencing smoke detectors while the house keeps burning. How might awareness of genetic risk change the way individuals approach prevention, lifestyle, and long term health decisions? It changes the timeline. Heart disease does not begin at the heart attack. It begins decades earlier, silently. My son knows at 16 what I learned at 52 in an emergency room. He can make forty years of informed decisions I never got to make. Test early. Test your children. Know your Lp(a). Know your fasting insulin. Awareness converts fate into a plan. The event that almost killed me does not have to happen to him. What does your transformation suggest about the possibility of rebuilding health after crisis, and what does that process require beyond medical intervention? It requires a reason. Mine was my fifteen year old daughter telling me I was not the father she knew. It requires truth. I could not heal until I understood why I got sick. And it requires ownership. Food, sleep, stress, movement, testing. Nobody does that work for you. Today I am 58, on zero medications, with the metabolic health of a man in his early forties. The body knows how to heal. You have to stop feeding it the things that are breaking it, and you have to want to come back. At its core, what is the book asking us to reconsider about the meaning of true health, especially in a world where disease can exist silently beneath peak performance? True health is not the absence of symptoms and it is not the presence of muscles. It is what your bloodwork says when you finally ask the right questions. Disease grows in silence for decades beneath strong, busy, successful lives. The book asks one thing. Stop outsourcing your health to your appearance, and stop outsourcing it to a system that measures one number. Look deeper. Ask why. The truth heals. Website: https://healthtruth.ai/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markkaplan20/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkKaplan20 Link to purchase the book: https://us.amazon.com/Unplugged-Mark-Kaplan-ebook/dp/B0H2C75R31  Richard Fallquist spent fifty years as a consulting actuary, analyzing data and organizing complex information. While his career left little time for reading for pleasure, retirement opened the door to finally explore the classics he had always admired. Merging his talent for list-making with the power of modern digital resources, Fallquist developed an efficient, enjoyable way to sample and appreciate the greatest works in literature, music, opera, and art. His passion for cultural discovery inspired Great Works and Me, offering readers a clear and inviting pathway into the masterpieces of human creativity. A native of Spokane, Washington, and now a resident of the Pacific Northwest, he long harbored a desire to read the classics and explore the great cultural works he had missed during his busy career. In retirement, Fallquist combined his lifelong habit of list-making with the wealth of resources available online to create an engaging "speed launch" into the Western Canon. After a successful fifty-year career as a consulting actuary, what inspired you to write Great Works and Me? As a consulting actuary I had very little time to read fiction. I decided to start with some classical fiction, so I gathered lists of the top-rated books and watched some You Tubes. This approach to discovery was easy and very satisfying for me. I wanted to share what I’d come to enjoy of my approach. Fortunately, I reconnected with a high-school classmate, Jennifer McCord, who is an editorial and publishing consultant. Together, with my editors and graphic designer, we created Great Works and Me. You describe retirement as an opportunity to explore the classics you had long admired. What sparked your desire to finally begin that journey? In retirement, I finally had the time to undertake a study of the early classics in literature. I just knew they were great classics and I wanted to appreciate them and add more. Many people feel intimidated by classical literature, art, music, and opera. What motivated you to create a guide that makes these works more approachable? The Great Works can be intimidating. Once I realized I had created a method to explore and enjoy the great works without a major investment in time and effort – I wanted to share the method. How did your background as an actuary and lifelong list-maker influence the structure and organization of this book? Actuarial Science in its application requires some structure and organization. I have always enjoyed lists. For each chapter, I wrote a brief introduction, added some interesting You Tubes, and created a listing of the favorites. This approach tied the chapters together. During your exploration of the Western Canon, was there a particular work, author, artist, or composer that had a profound impact on you? Here are a few favorites: Odysseus’ travels back to Penelope, Aeneas and Dido, Richard III and the Hollow Crown, Joyce’s Ulysses, Absalom, Absalom!, The Old Man and the Sea, the many plays, the BibleProject, Picasso, Raphael, Bach, Chopin, Nick Reveles’ Opera Talk, Renee Fleming in Der Rosenkavalier. You could say it grew into a whole book of my favorites. What do you hope readers discover about themselves through engaging with the great works of literature, music, and art? I want readers to add this extraordinary dimension to their lives but at their own pace. To find time to explore, to reflect, and to have self-discovery. To revisit the books they read and loved. To explore the beautiful art masterpieces and classical compositions. To find new Great Works and the pure enjoyment of discovering voices of the past that resonate with your own experience. In the book, you discuss living the “examined life.” Why do you believe the classics remain relevant in today's fast-paced, technology-driven world? Since the oldest stories were written in the stars, these classics have been with us through all generations. These ideas, the music, and the art are both representative of their times and relevant today. The more we read, listen, and study, we realize that despite our differences, we all have common affections, sympathies, and desires to know and belong. The examined life emphasizes self-reflection. It’s so important to slow down in this fast-paced world and see the humanity that echoes across centuries right into what we need today. What advice would you give to someone who has always wanted to explore the classics but doesn't know where to begin? Have no fear. Explore whatever captures your attention. Take the time to thoroughly enjoy these works no matter the depth, the speed, or route that you choose. What is the most important takeaway you hope readers gain from Great Works and Me? A sense of accomplishment, of growth, and some self-discovery. To think about how these works are related through the centuries, are important in our lives, and still relevant today. If readers finish your book and choose to explore just one Great Work as a result, what would you hope that experience gives them? The desire to explore another, and another. Turtle Bay Publishing LLC
206-817-1872 [email protected] Website: https://richardfallquist.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rfallquistauth/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588149968446 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-fallquist-344755/?_l=en_US Link to purchase the book: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Works-Me-Enhancing-Classics-ebook/dp/B0GR6G11GX/  Valerie Nifora is a best-selling and award-winning author, who was born and raised in New York to Greek immigrant parents. She credits her Greek heritage for her love of words and storytelling. Her first romance novel, The Fairmounts, debuted as a #1 New Release. It's a historical romantic-suspense story that follows Harry LaCroix as he returns from war looking to settle into a quiet life with his last living relative and confidant, Lois Fairmount. But his plans take an unexpected turn when he falls for a mysterious heiress with a missing fortune. The Seattle Book Review gave The Fairmounts 5-Stars stating quote the story is "a beautiful romance novel, full of suspense, mystery, tales of old legends, and so much more." She's also written a collection of romantic poetry called, I Asked the Wind that explores innocence, sensuality, passion, desire, heartbreak and loss through the lens of her personal experience spanning 15 years. I Asked the Wind has received a Gold Award from the Nonfiction Authors Association, a 5-Star review from the San Francisco Book Review, a Top 10 Finalist for the Author Elite Awards a globally recognized honor, and a Distinguished Favorite by the Big NYC Book Awards. Valerie holds a B.A. in Communications from Emerson College and an M.B.A. from Fordham University. She is married, a mother of two amazing sons, a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic, and tea addict. What inspired you to write The Shopkeeper’s Daughter? Last Christmas, my friend Dorrie gave me a tea tin shaped like a house. I loved it instantly! It was the shape of a little shop with tea cups and tablecloths and even a red bicycle along the side. And it had these tiny pinprick holes dotted along its surface, and when a small battery-powered light was switched on inside, the house glowed softly as if it alive. And I turned it over and over in my hands, I knew there was a story in there. And that’s how The Shopkeeper’s Daughter was born. It was a tiny object but it had an entire world inside of it. Besides the tea tin was there anything else you used to inspire your story? Interestingly enough, I always keep a book near my for inspiration, and while I was writing The Shopkeeper’s Daughter, I had Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol right by my desk and I would flip through it and hold it when I didn’t know what would come next in my story. So, it was my guiding light as it were, along with the tea tin. Your novel unfolds almost entirely within the walls of Cole’s Sundry Shop, yet the story never feels confined. With only a handful of characters, you still create a world that feels rich, expansive, and enchanting. How did you achieve that sense of depth and magic within such an intimate setting? I’ve always felt very comfortable in small spaces. For me, they’ve always felt safe, so it was important to communicate that a small space doesn’t have to mean a small story. Cole’s Sundry Shop is modest in size, but it’s layered with memory, longing, and the history of the people who have lived in it, so it’s almost a character in itself. I focused on the textures—the porcelain teapots, the satin curtains, the storm raging outside and how it impacted the shop—because those details carry the emotional truth of Agnes’s world. And with a small cast, every interaction matters. Agnes, Malcolm, Thaddeus, Daniel Cole, Aunt Charlotte all bring a different kind of tension or tenderness. Their presence shifts the air in the shop. That intimacy allows the story to feel both contained and expansive, like a whispered secret that somehow fills an entire room. In the end, enchantment doesn’t come from the size of the setting but from the depth of what’s at stake within it. How does the story use the idea of a “wish barely remembered” to explore the power of subconscious desires? The “wish barely remembered” is really about how our deepest desires keep shaping us long after we’ve forgotten making them. Agnes may have forgotten that childhood longing, but it’s still quietly guiding her — almost like a compass she doesn’t realize she’s holding. I also wanted to show that wishes are powerful, and they rarely arrive in the form we expect. Sometimes they upend our plans or ask us to reconsider the life we thought we wanted. That’s why the things we whisper to ourselves matter. Even the small wishes have a way of finding their moment, and when they do, they can change everything. What role does memory play in Agnes’s life, and how does the story blur the line between what is remembered, imagined, or possibly enchanted? Memory is the lens through which Agnes understands her world, but it’s also the place where truth and longing quietly intertwine. She carries her memories like heirlooms—cherished, selective—which makes it difficult to separate what actually happened from what she needed to believe. The story intentionally blurs that line. Some moments feel remembered, some feel imagined, and some carry a shimmer that suggests something more. That ambiguity mirrors Agnes’s inner life: her grief, her yearning, and her willingness to let the extraordinary slip in through the cracks of the ordinary. In that space, memory becomes both a refuge and a doorway, inviting the reader to decide what is real, what is hoped for, and what might be enchanted. How does the novel explore the tension between steadfast, tangible love (Thaddeus) and elusive, possibly illusory love (Malcolm)? The novel uses Thaddeus and Malcolm to explore two very different expressions of love: one rooted in steadiness and devotion, the other in possibility and longing. Thaddeus represents the kind of love that is tangible, earned, and proven over time—the kind you can build a life on. Malcolm, by contrast, embodies the love we imagine, the love that feels fated or otherworldly, the love that arrives like a whisper from some forgotten part of ourselves. For Agnes, the tension comes from the fact that both are real to her, but in different ways. Thaddeus grounds her; Malcolm awakens her. One offers certainty, the other wonder. And the story asks a very human question: which kind of love shapes us more — the one we can hold, or the one that haunts us? At its core, what is the story saying about the fragile boundary between illusion and truth, and how that boundary influences the life we ultimately choose to live? The story suggests that the line between illusion and truth is far more delicate than we like to admit. We often think we’re making choices based on reason or certainty, when in reality we’re guided by memory, longing, and the stories we quietly tell ourselves about what life should be. For Agnes, that fragile boundary becomes the place where her life is shaped. What she believes, what she hopes for, and what she dares to imagine all carry as much weight as what is objectively real. The novel asks readers to consider that sometimes the truths we live by aren’t factual—they’re emotional. And those emotional truths can be just as powerful, just as defining, as anything we can touch. In the end, the life we choose often grows out of the illusions we’re willing to believe in and the truths we’re brave enough to face. When readers turn the final page of The Shopkeeper’s Daughter, what do you hope they carry with them—emotionally or reflectively? I hope they walk away with a sense of quiet magic—that feeling you get when the world seems just a little more enchanted than it did before. I hope they feel happy, a bit enlightened, and reminded that life still holds wonder in its smallest, most unexpected moments. If the story leaves them with even a flicker of that feeling, then I’ve done what I set out to do. Website: www.valerienifora.com
Faceboook: www.facebook.com/ValerieNifora Instagram: www.instagram.com/valerienifora X : https://x.com/vnifora Link to purchase the book: https://www.amazon.com/Shopkeepers-Daughter-Valerie-Nifora/dp/B0GRC5TWTX  Lena Hendrix is a USA Today and Amazon Top 5 bestselling author of contemporary romance that blends small-town charm with emotional depth and open-door heat. A Midwest girl, she enjoys hiking, camping, fishing, gardening, and flannel-wearing fictional men. She lives in Illinois and dreams of someday owning a coastal Michigan lake house with questionable WiFi but excellent vibes. Connect with her @authorlenahendrix on Instagram and TikTok and at LenaHendrix.com. What does the marriage of convenience trope reveal about the ways people sometimes negotiate survival, security, and emotional boundaries in love stories? I think marriage of convenience is such a satisfying trope because on the surface, it feels practical. Two people make a choice for security, survival, family, money, protection, reputation—whatever the external pressure might be. They draw lines. They make rules. They tell themselves this is a transaction, not a love story. Of course, that’s exactly where the magic is. Because love rarely listens to the rules we make when we’re trying to protect ourselves. A marriage of convenience lets us watch two people negotiate what they think they need against what their hearts actually want. It reveals all the ways people build emotional boundaries for very valid reasons, then slowly find themselves standing on the wrong side of them. For me, the beauty of the trope is that it gives characters safety before they’re ready to admit they want intimacy. They may not trust love yet, but they can trust the structure. The agreement. The shared roof. The promise, even if it starts out as pretend. How does the contrast between the single mom’s “sunshine” energy and Abel King’s grumpy demeanor shape their dynamic, both in tension and in attraction? I love that dynamic because Sloane’s sunshine isn’t softness in the fragile sense. It’s resilience. She’s a single mom, which means her warmth has been earned through exhaustion, sacrifice, and choosing joy even when life has not made it easy. Abel’s grumpiness, on the other hand, is his armor. He’s guarded, controlled, and not exactly eager to let anyone rearrange his carefully managed life. That contrast creates instant tension because she pushes light into all the places he’d rather keep shut. She sees past the scowl. He sees the strength beneath her sweetness. Neither of them is what the other expects, and that’s where the attraction catches fire. For me, the best grumpy/sunshine pairings aren’t about one person fixing the other. They’re about two people recognizing the person beneath the surface—and falling even harder. In what ways does Abel’s criminal past function as more than backstory—how does it influence how others see him and how he sees himself? When it comes to Abel, other people see the record, the reputation, the choices he made, and they think they already know him. That kind of judgment has weight. It follows him, even when he is trying to be different. Even when he has already paid for it. But the harder part, I think, is how much Abel has internalized that version of himself. He does not just fear that people see him as dangerous, damaged, or unworthy. Some part of him believes they might be right. How does the small-town Michigan setting intensify the stakes of both business struggle and personal reputation in the story? Small towns have a way of making everything feel more intimate—for better and worse. In a big city, a business struggle might stay mostly private. In a small Michigan town, people notice. They know who opened late, who is behind on repairs, who looks tired at the grocery store, who had an argument on the sidewalk. There is care in that kind of closeness, but there is also pressure. The setting raises the stakes because there is nowhere to fully hide. How does the evolving meaning of the phrase “my wife” reflect the shift from transactional agreement to emotional intimacy? Lovers of the “marriage of convenience” trope often love a “my wife” moment. At first, “my wife” is almost a technicality. It is the language of the agreement. The role they have both stepped into. The convenient explanation for why they are suddenly tied together. But the more Abel says it, the more the meaning changes. What starts as a label becomes a claiming. There is protection in it. Pride. Wonder. A little bit of disbelief that this woman and whatever is happening between them might actually be real. I love when a phrase like that shifts over the course of a book. The words stay the same, but the feeling underneath them deepens until “my wife” stops being part of the bargain and starts sounding like his heart telling the truth before he is ready to. What role does humor and internal monologue play in balancing the emotional weight of the characters’ individual struggles? Humor and internal monologue are such useful tools because people rarely say exactly what they mean, especially when they are scared, hurt, attracted, or trying very hard not to be vulnerable. A character might say one thing out loud, then think or feel something completely different underneath it. That gap is where so much of the fun lives for me as a writer—and as a reader. You get to see the armor and the wound at the same time. You see what they are trying to hide, what they are not ready to admit, and where the truth is starting to sneak in anyway. Humor helps balance the emotional weight because it keeps the characters human. Even in painful moments, they can still deflect, make a dry comment, spiral internally, or notice something ridiculous at exactly the wrong time. For me, that contrast makes the romance feel more real. The banter may be what they use to protect themselves, but the internal monologue often shows us where the true feelings are beginning to take root. In what ways do both characters use emotional walls—grumpiness, optimism, sarcasm, control—to protect themselves from vulnerability? So many love stories begin with people trying to be practical. They make an arrangement. They set expectations. They decide what the relationship is allowed to be because that feels safer than admitting what they might actually want. But love has a way of growing in the cracks of all that practicality. In a marriage of convenience, it often shows up in the shared routines, or the quiet acts of care. That is what makes a transactional setup so emotionally satisfying to me. The structure may begin as a way to survive or get something, but over time, it becomes a place where trust can form. It’s where vulnerability can slip in. I love when two people who were only supposed to be solving a problem realize they have accidentally built something real. Website: https://www.lenahendrix.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorlenahendrix/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@authorlenahendrix Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lenahendrixwrites/ Link to purchase the book: https://www.amazon.com/Just-My-Luck-Deluxe-Limited/dp/1496761308/  Bella Olson is making her debut as an author with her novel, Trapped, at only 11 years old! She is also the founder of Avocado Awesomeness, a YouTube channel dedicated to all things fun, creative, and just a little bit extra. Bella is a SLAY Brazilian-American fluent in both Portuguese and English. A musical theater enthusiast, she has brought characters to life in The Lion King, Descendants, Matilda, and many more—and she can perform the Hamilton soundtrack start to finish without missing a beat. What does Ava’s invention of herself as a “brave problem-solver” reveal about how children naturally approach fear and uncertainty? I think kids are actually way braver than people sometimes realize. A lot of times, kids don’t wait until they feel completely confident before trying something; they just jump in and figure it out as they go. Ava is scared constantly, but her brain naturally switches into problem-solving mode because she wants to survive and help her friends. I think that’s something a lot of kids do in real life, too. Even when things feel overwhelming, they still try. How does humor—especially through elements like a magic, party-hat-wearing chicken—help reframe danger and make bravery feel more accessible to younger readers? Humor makes scary things feel less impossible. If everything in the story were serious all the time, it would feel too heavy. But when you add weirdness and ridiculous moments, like Rocco existing, it reminds readers that even during scary situations, there’s still room for joy and silliness. I think laughing can actually make characters feel braver because it takes away some of fear’s power. In what ways does Dr. Heynis function as a classic “mad scientist” archetype, and how is that trope reinvented for a modern middle-grade adventure? Dr. Heynis definitely has the classic mad scientist energy. Strange inventions, creepy experiments, giant traps, dramatic entrances, and weird hair. But I also wanted him to feel unpredictable and oddly funny at times instead of just purely evil. In middle-grade stories, I think villains are more interesting when they’re scary and bizarre because kids imagine things in such creative ways. He’s dangerous, but he also fits the strange, chaotic tone of the story. How do Ava’s inventions and problem-solving skills reflect the idea that creativity can be just as powerful as physical strength in overcoming obstacles? Ava doesn’t escape because she’s the strongest person in the room. She escapes because she keeps thinking. She notices patterns, invents tools, adapts quickly, and looks at problems differently. I wanted readers to see that creativity is a superpower too. Sometimes the smartest or weirdest solution is more powerful than brute strength. What role do Ava’s parents’ lessons play in shaping her decisions once she is trapped, and how does this highlight the lasting impact of everyday parenting? Ava remembers little things her parents told her throughout the story, especially when she’s scared. I really wanted those moments because parents don’t always realize how much small conversations stick with kids. Advice that seems simple at home can suddenly become really important later. Ava’s bravery is connected to the love and encouragement she grew up with. How does the story balance high-stakes tension (traps, clones, shark pools) with comedic moments to keep readers engaged rather than overwhelmed? I always wanted the story to feel exciting instead of stressful. The humor gives readers a chance to breathe between intense moments. One second, Ava might be escaping sharks, and the next, there’s something completely ridiculous happening. That balance makes the adventure feel fun and unpredictable instead of dark. I think middle-grade readers especially love stories that can be suspenseful and hilarious at the same time. What does Rocco the magic chicken symbolize beyond comic relief—could he represent imagination, confidence, or unexpected support systems? I think Rocco represents the unexpected things that help us through difficult situations. Sometimes support doesn’t come from where you expect. He’s also a reminder that imagination matters. The world of Trapped is weird and chaotic, and Rocco fully embraces that weirdness instead of apologizing for it. In a way, he helps Ava believe that unusual things and unusual people can still be important and powerful. How does Ava’s journey redefine what it means to be “brave,” especially in moments when she is still scared but chooses to act anyway? To me, bravery is not being fearless. Bravery is doing something even while your hands are shaking. Ava is scared throughout almost the entire story. She’s claustrophobic, she hates the dark, she doubts herself sometimes — but she keeps moving anyway. I think that’s more realistic and more meaningful than a character who’s never afraid. In what ways do Ava’s new friendships inside the facility reinforce the idea that connection can be formed even in the most unusual or dangerous circumstances? Ava, Luna, and Maya are all very different, but they need each other. I wanted their friendship to show how quickly people can bond when they’re honest and vulnerable together. Even in a strange and dangerous place, they find ways to trust each other, laugh together, and support one another. Sometimes, difficult situations can actually bring people closer. At its core, what message does the story offer about embracing individuality—especially the “weird” parts—as a source of strength rather than something to hide? One of the biggest messages in Trapped is that being weird is not a bad thing. The characters’ unusual qualities are often what help them survive. Ava’s creativity, Luna’s personality, Rocco’s randomness, all of it matters. I think the story encourages readers to stop seeing their differences as flaws. The things that make you different can actually become your greatest strengths. Website: https://www.bellaolson.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebellaolson/ Link to purchase the book: https://www.amazon.com/Trapped-Bella-Olson/dp/1637748701  Dr. Cindy McGovern is the “First Lady of Sales ", an internationally recognized speaker, and the founder/CEO of Orange Leaf Consulting and Orange Leaf Academy. She is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author whose work helps people sell their ideas, advocate for their value, and show up with confidence—without waiting for someone else to hand them permission. What are the “invisible rules” Dr. McGovern refers to, and how do they quietly shape decisions long before we recognize their influence? The “invisible rules” are the unspoken expectations we adopt over time about who we’re supposed to be, how we’re supposed to act, what is considered acceptable, and even what we’re allowed to want. They come from our childhood, our family, relationships, culture, and past experiences. Things like “Don’t be too loud,” “Don’t make people uncomfortable,” or “Keep the peace,” or “Just be grateful.” The tricky part is that these rules become so familiar that we stop questioning them. They quietly influence the jobs we apply for, the boundaries we set or don’t set, the risks we take, the way we communicate and even how much joy we allow ourselves to experience. Many people don’t realize that they’re making decisions based on inherited beliefs instead of their own values. The first step is awareness. Pausing long enough toask yourself whether the rule you’re following is actually true for you today.Whether you really believe it or not. That is where you start taking back your own power. In what ways does the idea of being “good, polite, and agreeable” become a form of self-erasure rather than social success? There’s nothing wrong with being polite and agreeble, as long as it does not come at the expense of your own happiness. There is a big difference between being kind or polite and shrinking. The problem is when being “good” becomes more important than being honest. Many people, especially women, are rewarded early in life for being agreeable, accommodating, and easy to manage. Over time, that conditioning can teach us to prioritize everyone else’s comfort over our own truth. That’s where shrinking begins. You stop saying what you really think. You downplay your accomplishments. You apologize before you even speak. You say yes when you desperately want to say no. From the outside, people may see you as pleasant or cooperative because you’re “so easy to work with.” But internally? You can feel exhausted, resentful, and disconnected from yourself andyou can start losing connection with your own voice. Real confidence comes from learning that you can be both kind and clear, compassionate and direct. You can take up space without taking anything away from someone else. How does the concept of “backup singers” in your mind help explain internalized doubt, and how can someone begin identifying those voices in real time? The “backup singers” are those internal voices that sound like us but were often formed by other people’s opinions, fears, or expectations.
Why is confidence described as something built through action rather than something people simply possess, and how does this shift the way we think about fear? Most people think confidence works like this: first you feel confident… then you act. But real life usually works the exact opposite way. Confidence is built because you acted. You tried. You stumbled. You survived. You learned. It’s built through experience, repetition, and surviving moments that once felt uncomfortable. That changes how we think about fear. Fear stops becoming proof that you shouldn’t do something and starts becoming evidence that you’re stretching beyond what’s familiar. Courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s deciding to be afraid and do it anywys. Fear does not get the final vote. Every time you take a small action despite uncertainty, you build trust in yourself. That’s where real confidence comes from. How can fear and imposter syndrome be reframed as signals for growth instead of barriers to progress? Fear and imposter syndrome only show up when we’re entering unfamiliar territory. Many people interpret those feelings as signs they don’t belong, when in reality it simply means that they’re growing. If you’re trying something meaningful, there’s a good chance you’ll feel uncomfortable. That discomfort doesn’t mean you’re incapable; it means you care. Reframing fear as information rather than identity is powerful. Instead of saying, “I’m not ready,” you can begin asking, “What is this moment teaching me?” Growth rarely feels comfortable while it’s happening. And honestly? That’s usually a sign you’re moving in the right direction. What does it look like in practice to “clean out your emotional closet,” and why is letting go of old narratives so difficult? Cleaning out your emotional closet means taking inventory of the stories, beliefs, and emotional baggage you’ve been carrying—especially the ones that no longer serve you. It’s asking questions like: “Where did this belief come from?” “Is this still true?” and “Who would I be without this story?” “Is this helping me grow or keeping me small?” It’s difficult because those narratives often helped us feel safe and protected or accepted at somepoint in our lives. Even limiting beliefs can feel familiar and safe because they are predictable. Letting them go can feel like losing part of your identity. But growth requires making room for new beliefs that align with who you are now, not just who you had to be in the past. How does over-apologizing or over-explaining subtly reinforce a lack of self-trust in both personal and professional settings? Over-apologizing and over-explaining often come from the fear that our needs, decisions, or boundaries won’t be accepted unless we justify, soften and add twelve extra paragraphs nobody asked for. It’s a way of seeking approval before we allow ourselves to take up space. When someone constantly explains or apologizes for reasonable choices, they unintentionally communicate uncertainty. Self-trust is much more calm and reassured. It allows you to say, “This is what I need,” or “This is my decision,” without feeling obligated to defend it. That doesn’t mean becoming dismissive or harsh. It means trusting that your voice and perspective are valid without seeking permission. What changes when someone shifts from asking for permission to actively granting it to themselves? Everything changes. The moment you stop waiting for someone else to validate your choices, your life starts becoming your own again. You stop living reactively and start living intentionally. Instead of waiting for someone else to validate your choices, you begin making decisions based on alignment, values, and self-trust. That shift creates freedom. People become more willing to take risks, speak honestly, pursue opportunities, and set healthier boundaries. Leave situations that no longer fit. They stop outsourcing their worth to external approval. Self-doubt may still show up from time to time. We’re human. But it no longer gets to run the show. How can learning to say “no” without guilt actually expand, rather than limit, a person’s opportunities and relationships? Every time you say yes to something that drains you, overwhelms you, or completely misaligns with your values, you’re accidentally saying no to your energy, peace, priorities, or growth.] Healthy “no’s” create space. They allow you to invest more fully in the people, opportunities, and commitments that genuinely matter. They also create more honest relationships because people begin interacting with the real you instead of the overly accommodating version of you. Boundaries don’t destroy connections. They strengthen it by making relationships more authentic and sustainable. And “No” is a complete sentence. At its core, what is the book suggesting about the difference between living a life shaped by external approval versus one guided by internal alignment? A life shaped by external approval is often built around trying to meet expectations, avoid criticism, or gain validation from others. It can look successful from the outside while still feeling disconnected internally, exhausted and unfulfilled. A life guided by internal alignment feels different. Decisions come from values, purpose, and self-awareness rather than fear of judgment. You stop asking, “Will everyone approve of this?” and start asking, “Does this feel true to who I am?” That shift doesn’t make life perfect or easy, but it makes it more honest. And ultimately, that’s where fulfillment lives. It is crucial to listen to your inner voice about what is most important to you and what you want. And to give yourself permission to do that. And to remember, that the only permission you need is your own. Website: https://www.thepermissionmissionbook.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1stLadyofSales Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1stladyofsales/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drcindy Link to purchase the book: https://www.amazon.com/Permission-Mission-Reclaiming-Power-Trust/dp/164687241X  Steven Kotler is an American journalist, award-winning author and entrepreneur, recognized globally for his work in human performance, neuroscience, and the science of flow states. He holds a degree in English and creative writing from University of Wisconsin–Madison. Kotler has authored numerous nonfiction books — including The Rise of Superman, Stealing Fire, The Art of Impossible and, together with Diamandis, Abundance and Bold. Beyond writing, Kotler is the founder and executive director of Flow Research Collective — a leading organization researching peak performance, creativity, and human potential. His journalistic work has appeared in major publications like Wired, The New York Times Magazine, TIME and others. Known for blending scientific insight, storytelling and practical advice, Kotler has helped popularize the concept of “flow” — the state of peak creativity and productivity — and inspired many to explore human performance beyond conventional limits. Peter H. Diamandis is a Greek-American engineer, physician, entrepreneur and bestselling author — widely regarded as a driving force in commercial space, longevity, and exponential-technology ventures. He earned degrees in molecular genetics and aerospace engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and later received an M.D. from Harvard Medical School. Over the decades, he has founded or co-founded more than 20 companies across space, health-tech, education, and venture capital — including XPRIZE Foundation, Singularity University, Planetary Resources, Celularity, and BOLD Capital Partners. As an author and speaker, Diamandis has co-written influential books such as Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think and Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth, and Impact the World — works that argue for optimism about humanity’s future, driven by innovation and exponential technologies. He remains a vocal advocate for using technology to solve large-scale global challenges — from space exploration to human longevity — and his guiding motto has been “the best way to predict the future is to create it yourself." What does Stewart Brand’s statement “We are as gods—and we might as well get good at it” mean in today’s context of rapidly advancing technology? Stewart Brand saw this coming decades ago. Today, the statement feels less philosophical and more operational. We’ve reached a moment where ordinary people now possess capabilities that would have looked supernatural to previous generations. A teenager with a smartphone has access to more information than presidents had a few decades ago. Small teams can edit genes, train AI systems, launch satellites, or influence millions of people instantly. That’s godlike leverage. But the second half of Brand’s quote matters more: “we might as well get good at it.” Power without wisdom is dangerous. The technologies themselves are neutral. The real question is whether human beings can develop the emotional regulation, ethical maturity, and cognitive flexibility required to handle exponential power responsibly. How does the shift from scarcity to abundance change not just what humanity can do, but what it should do? For most of human history, civilization was organized around scarcity: scarce food, scarce energy, scarce information, scarce opportunity. Scarcity shaped our politics, economics, psychology—everything. But exponential technologies are beginning to invert that equation. When energy becomes abundant, when AI expands access to knowledge, when biotechnology radically extends healthspan, the conversation changes from survival to stewardship. The question stops being: How do we get enough? and becomes: What kind of future do we want to build? Abundance raises the stakes morally. It forces us to confront meaning, purpose, and responsibility in a new way. If suffering is increasingly optional, then creating systems that expand human flourishing becomes a conscious choice rather than an impossible dream. In what ways does having “godlike” technological power—such as gene editing or AI creation—create new ethical responsibilities rather than just opportunities? Every leap in capability expands the radius of consequence. CRISPR gives us the ability to alter life itself. AI gives us systems that can increasingly influence thought, labor, creativity, and social structure at scale. These are extraordinary opportunities, but they also demand a new level of ethical seriousness. The problem is that technological evolution is now outpacing cultural evolution. Our tools are accelerating exponentially while our moral frameworks evolve slowly and unevenly. That mismatch creates risk. We can no longer afford to think like isolated individuals. In an interconnected world, individual actions can have planetary effects. Ethical responsibility now includes long-term thinking, systems thinking, and understanding second- and third-order consequences. The challenge isn’t simply whether we can build something. It’s whether building it moves humanity toward greater resilience, freedom, meaning, and flourishing. Why do the authors argue that increased external power must be matched by increased inner resilience, and what might that inner development look like in practice? Because history shows that external power amplifies internal instability. Technology doesn’t eliminate human nature; it magnifies it. If we are anxious, distracted, tribal, or reactive, our technologies scale those qualities too. Right now, we’re experiencing a massive asymmetry. Externally, we’re becoming extraordinarily powerful. Internally, many people are overwhelmed, fragmented, addicted to distraction, and psychologically exhausted. That’s not sustainable. Inner resilience means developing the capacity to remain focused, emotionally regulated, adaptable, and purpose-driven under accelerating conditions. In practice, that looks like training attention, cultivating flow states, building strong relationships, embracing challenge voluntarily, strengthening physical and mental health, and reconnecting to meaning. In many ways, the future belongs to the people who can stay calm in the midst of exponential change. How can abundance paradoxically lead to confusion, overwhelm, or lack of meaning instead of satisfaction? Human beings evolved in environments of limitation. Scarcity gave life structure. When options explode, meaning doesn’t automatically appear alongside them. In fact, abundance often creates cognitive overload. Today, we’re flooded with information, choices, stimulation, and opportunity. Our nervous systems weren’t designed for infinite inputs. Without internal frameworks for meaning and prioritization, abundance can become destabilizing. People lose focus. Attention fragments. Anxiety rises. Decision fatigue sets in. This is why psychological development becomes so important in an abundant world. Freedom without purpose can feel like chaos. The challenge is no longer simply acquiring resources; it’s learning how to direct attention, energy, and intention wisely. What risks emerge when intelligence advances faster than wisdom, and how might those risks already be visible today? We’re already seeing it. Intelligence gives us capability; wisdom governs application. Right now, our systems reward optimization far more than reflection. We’ve become extraordinarily good at building technologies that capture attention, manipulate behavior, and scale influence, but we haven’t developed equivalent cultural maturity around their use. Social media is an obvious example. We created tools capable of connecting billions of people, but without understanding the psychological consequences of algorithmically amplified outrage, comparison, tribalism, and addiction. The same dynamic now exists with AI. These systems are becoming astonishingly capable, but capability alone doesn’t guarantee positive outcomes. Wisdom requires humility, long-term thinking, empathy, and an understanding of interconnectedness. Without those qualities, intelligence can accelerate instability just as easily as progress. How does the idea of “playing god” challenge traditional boundaries between science, philosophy, and spirituality? Because once humans gain the ability to shape evolution, consciousness, intelligence, and biology directly, the old categories start collapsing into each other. Questions that used to belong exclusively to philosophy or religion are now becoming engineering questions. What kind of intelligence should exist? What is consciousness? What is a meaningful life? Should humans redesign themselves? Those aren’t purely scientific questions. They’re existential questions. The future requires a more integrated conversation. Science tells us what’s possible. Philosophy helps us think clearly about consequences and ethics. Spiritual traditions often contain deep insights about meaning, identity, suffering, and human flourishing. We need all three perspectives working together because the stakes are now civilizational. What role does humility play in a world where humans can increasingly reshape biology, intelligence, and even consciousness itself? Humility becomes essential precisely because our power is expanding so quickly. Complex systems are notoriously unpredictable. History is filled with examples of unintended consequences created by overconfidence. Humility is not weakness. It’s recognition of complexity. It’s understanding that we will never fully predict every downstream effect of technologies operating at planetary scale. That mindset encourages caution, iteration, collaboration, and openness to correction. The paradox is that the more powerful we become, the more humility we require. Otherwise, we confuse capability with wisdom. And those are very different things. How might individuals and societies maintain a sense of purpose and groundedness in an era of exponential technological change? Purpose increasingly becomes a stabilizing technology. In a world moving this quickly, people need frameworks that organize attention, identity, and action. Otherwise, they get swept into distraction and reactivity. At the individual level, groundedness comes from relationships, meaningful challenge, service, creativity, physical embodiment, and community. Human beings need goals larger than themselves. We need narratives that connect our lives to something meaningful. At the societal level, we need institutions and cultures that prioritize human flourishing rather than pure optimization. Technology should expand agency, creativity, health, and possibility—not simply efficiency. One of the core ideas in the book is that awe, purpose, and challenge are not luxuries. They’re psychological survival tools for the exponential age. At its core, what is the book suggesting about the difference between simply having powerful tools and learning how to use them in ways that sustain human flourishing? Having powerful tools is not the same thing as becoming wise enough to wield them. Humanity has always advanced technologically faster than psychologically, but now the gap is becoming existential. The book argues that the future will not be determined solely by technological progress. It will be determined by whether human beings can evolve emotionally, cognitively, and ethically fast enough to match the power we’ve created. Technology can produce abundance, but abundance alone does not guarantee meaning, justice, resilience, or flourishing. Those outcomes require conscious design. They require values. They require wisdom. Ultimately, We Are as Gods is not really a book about technology. It’s a book about human maturity. Website: https://www.weareasgodsbook.com/
Steven Kotler Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevenkotler/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KotlerSteven/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-kotler Peter H. Diamandis Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peterdiamandis/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PeterDiamandis/. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterdiamandis Link to purchase the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1668099543 |
AuthorJane Ubell-Meyer founded Bedside Reading in 2017. Prior to that she was a TV and Film producer. She has spent the last five years promoting, marketing and talking to authors and others who are experts in the field. Archives
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For more information contact: [email protected] 917 848 3353
Media
The Press Circuit
Privacy Policy
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Bedside Reading® is a Registered Trademark
