What If Thinking About Death Is the Key to Living Your Best Life With Karen Salmansohn
Release Date: 08/18/2026
From Losing $21 Million to Building Businesses That Don’t Need You With Tom Matzen
The Story Engine Podcast
I’ve built a lot of businesses over the years, but some of my biggest lessons came from the ones that went painfully wrong. In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with serial entrepreneur Tom Matzen, who has built 94 businesses, taken companies public, built franchise models, and experienced both enormous wins and multimillion-dollar losses. We dig into one of the most painful chapters of his career: turning a company valued at $21.4 million into $10 million in debt in just six months after stepping away from the business and trusting the wrong person. Tom shares what...
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What If Your Greatest Success Is Being Driven by an Unhealed Past With Bryan Post
The Story Engine Podcast
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the patterns that quietly shape how we lead, love, and live—and this conversation with Bryan Post took that exploration somewhere much deeper. Bryan has spent nearly 30 years working with families, adopted and foster children, parents, CEOs, entrepreneurs, and high-performing executives. His central message is powerful: when we experience stress, we don’t simply become stressed—we can actually regress emotionally, allowing old fears, traumas, and survival patterns to take control. In this episode, we unpack his “Fear to Love” methodology and...
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From Self-Hatred to a Life Built Around Human Connection With Jennifer Hill
The Story Engine Podcast
What happens when the traits you spent your life fighting become the very things that allow you to serve others? In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with Jennifer Hill, a self-described former “asshole” who has transformed decades of misunderstanding, broken relationships, self-hatred, and personal development into what she now calls her superpower: human connection. Jen shares the brutally honest moment when someone finally told her that her behavior was hurting people—and how that confrontation started a decades-long journey of learning to understand herself,...
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What If the Things Making You Sick Are the Things You Don’t Know to Look For With Dr. Torrie Thompson
The Story Engine Podcast
In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Torrie Thompson to unpack one of the most frustrating experiences in health: doing everything “right” and still feeling terrible. We talk about the hidden toxins in our homes, products, and environments that can quietly accumulate over time—and why so many symptoms that we’ve been taught to accept as “normal” may actually be signs that something deeper is going on. From scented trash bags and household chemicals to mold, heavy metals, environmental toxins, and gut issues, Torrie explains why her approach starts...
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Risk, Resilience, and Reinvention: How to Turn Life’s “Terrible Gifts” Into Your Next Chapter With Tom LeNoble
The Story Engine Podcast
What happens when the challenges you’ve spent years trying to overcome become the very experiences that shape who you’re capable of becoming? In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with Tom LeNoble, a former executive at companies including MCI, Palm, Walmart.com, and Facebook, who has been given six months to live three separate times and has lived with metastatic cancer for the past fourteen years. Rather than allowing those diagnoses to define his life, Tom has built his philosophy around three powerful principles: risk, resilience, and reinvention. We dig into...
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What If the Last 3% Is Hiding Outside Your Analytical Mind With Barry Goldstein
The Story Engine Podcast
In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with Barry Goldstein, a longtime music producer and creative collaborator who has spent more than 40 years exploring how music can magnify mission, unlock creativity, and help us move through the blocks that keep us from our next level. We dive into the idea of the “last 3%”—that frustrating gap between knowing you have something great and actually being able to fully express its potential. Barry explains why solving that final piece doesn’t necessarily require more effort, more analysis, or more information. Sometimes, it...
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What If the Biggest Problems in Your Business Are Actually a Sign You’re Out of Alignment With Esther Wildenberg
The Story Engine Podcast
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about alignment—not just as a personal-growth concept, but as something that directly affects how we lead, build businesses, make decisions, and live our lives. In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with Esther Wildenberg, an executive coach, entrepreneur, consultant, and AI business owner who has spent more than 20 years helping leaders recognize when they’ve drifted out of alignment and find their way back. Esther describes alignment as the place where our purpose, passion, heart, identity, and actions are working together—and...
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From “Behind Zero” to Playing a Bigger Game: How to Stop Letting Your Past Define Your Future with Markus Kaulius
The Story Engine Podcast
What if the very experiences you’ve been trying to leave behind are actually the things that qualify you to play a bigger game? In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with Markus Kaulius, a multi-exit entrepreneur, investor, author, and longtime student of personal development, to unpack the beliefs, habits, health, and faith that have shaped the man he is today. Markus grew up poor, in a broken family, and describes himself as starting “behind zero”—but instead of seeing that history as baggage, he learned to recognize it as the source of his work ethic,...
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I Did Everything Right—So Why Was I So Unhappy with Melissa Marina
The Story Engine Podcast
What happens when you’ve built the successful career, hit the milestones, created the life everyone tells you that you should want—and yet, deep down, you know something is wrong? In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with Melissa Marina, a subconscious healer and intuitive channel for top entrepreneurs and founders, to explore what happens when high achievers finally stop compromising their deepest desires. Melissa shares the story of graduating with honors, winning entrepreneurship awards, landing a great corporate job, and seemingly doing everything...
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When Your Business Is Thriving but Your Life Is Falling Apart With John Glon
The Story Engine Podcast
I sat down with entrepreneur and business coach John Glon for a conversation about something I’ve experienced personally—and something I see happen to so many founders: the moment when hard work, grit, and determination that once built the business start becoming the very things that hold it back. John shared his journey from running a successful electrical manufacturing business to realizing that his deeper calling was helping leaders and their teams communicate, execute, and lead better. We explored what happens when founders become the person everyone depends on, why “I’ll just...
info_outlineWhat if the thing we spend our lives avoiding—death—could actually become one of the most powerful tools for creating a more meaningful life? In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with behavioral change expert and bestselling author Karen Salmansohn to explore why so many ambitious, high-achieving people resist self-help, stay trapped in “beast mode,” and keep telling themselves they’ll finally live the life they want someday. Karen shares her philosophy of moving from the “den of pleasure” into the “laboratory of growth,” embracing emotional diversity, and focusing less on success, money, and productivity and more on becoming the person you actually want to be.
We also go deep into Karen’s personal story. After her father’s death forced her to confront how much of her own life she had been postponing, she wrote his eulogy—and then wrote one for herself. That exercise became a blueprint for the life she wanted to live. We explore how mortality awareness can create urgency, how identity-based habits can change behavior, why your core values can become the “puppet master” of your habits, and how a single message her father left behind—“Everything that is not given is lost”—continues to shape the work she does today. This is a conversation about death, but ultimately, it’s about learning how to live with more courage, intention, meaning, and purpose.