Little Detours Podcast

“We” just might be the most powerful word in the dictionary. “We” can topple a government. “We” can conquer cancer. “We” can fly to the moon and back.

All that we are as a country starts with “we.” It’s the first word to the Preamble of the U. S. Constitution: “We the People…” How do we unite a country? We don’t do anything to each other that we wouldn’t want done to us.

Be kind or be quiet. Disagree without being disrespectful. Look for the helpers and be one.

Find out how to become a Guardian of the Galaxy and grow your ‘we.’

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Mark Simone knew at 15 that he wanted to be a minister. He just didn’t know his ministry would take him on 17 trips to South Africa.

The survivors of Apartheid taught him to choose goodness over happiness, to elevate others and to remember that joy is the heart of the human soul.

Mark is an associate minister with Federated Church United Church of Christ in Chagrin Falls Ohio. He has been in full-time youth ministry for 41 years and has written four books on youth ministry.

He talks about white privilege and how to validate others. He also shares the tools he used to get through 18 years of liver disease and the transplant that saved his life.

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Foster child. Alcoholic. Marine. Vietnam War vet. Cancer survivor. Glenn Proctor has packed a lot of lives into one life. How did he survive it all? Grace, gratitude and grit.

The author of five books, Glenn became a writer at age 8. His poetry was his lifeline until he started drinking at 12. He joined the Marine Corps, served a year in Vietnam, came home and was in the next room when he heard the shot. The grandpa who had raised him took his own life.

Glenn got sober in 1984, worked in journalism for four decades then became a lifeline for others. He offers life coaching, mental health first aid and suicide prevention guidance. He shares how to never, ever, give up.

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One word. That’s all it takes to change your life. But which word?

Instead of making resolutions to change everything in your life, just choose one word. It could be Hope, Faith, Savor, Bask, Dance or Be.

Find out how to choose one word to be your compass point, your North Star, your X on the target of life.

My friend, Debbie Schoonover, joins me to talk about how she chooses the right word and lives it for an entire year.

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During this pandemic, we could all use a little more hope.

Where do you find hope? In a sunset that erases away a bad day. In the kindness of strangers. In Psalm 43. In Van Gogh blue skies and double rainbows and dandelions that burst through cracks in concrete. In nature, which never loses hope.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998, I started a hope chest for my imaginary grandchildren. I bought children’s books, Winnie the Pooh bookends and a tea set so I could have hope that I would get to grow old, even though I was only 41 and my daughter was only 19. I wanted to believe past the day I was in, especially the days when I was bald and sick from chemotherapy.

Now, I’m 64 and playing with those real grandchildren, who give me more hope that the best is always, yet to come.

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If you want to give a child sweet dreams, give a child a bed.

Tom Gaghan has given beds to 8, 500 children who once slept on the floor or a couch or a chair in the living room.

As executive director of the Cleveland Furniture Bank, Tom has made it his mission to provide beds for kids.

He spent 31 years working for Cleveland Electric Illuminating and was shocked the day he was let go with all his possessions in one box. After he was downsized when CEI merged with FirstEnergy, he lost half of his I.R.A. in a stock market slide.

Tom found a new career and helped launch the Cleveland Furniture Bank, which restores hope to those who need basic home furnishings, like couches, chairs, tables and dressers.

Find out how to give hope and turn a house into a home.

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So many books, so little time. And yet the pandemic has given us the gift of time. Since you have more time to read, Suzanne DeGaetano can help you choose the right book for you and for those you love.

C.S. Lewis said people read to know they are not alone. But what should we read?

Suzanne has been selling books since 1982. Her bookstore, Mac’s Backs on Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights, sells new and used books of all genres on three floors. She offers tips on choosing a book for plot, character, setting and language. She also shares her current five favorite must reads.

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Grief needs an exit ramp.

Grief comes in waves, some gentle, some a constant tide, others with the force of a tsunami. The deeper you loved, the larger the grief.

My nephew, Michael, died in September. He was 34. Then my cousin, Rusty, died the Sunday before Thanksgiving. He was 66. They both left behind families devastated by grief.

I’m trying to give my grief an exit ramp through tears, talking, writing and sharing stories with others.

It’s vital to take time to grieve. As Nigerian poet Ijeoma Umebinyou wrote, let the pain visit, allow it to teach you, but don’t let it stay forever.

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As a music therapist, Sarah Maxwell comforts the sick and dying. She shares what the dying have taught her about how to live, love and comfort yourself.

Sarah grew up in a chaotic home of addiction and mood disorders. She overcame an eating disorder at age 18 and turned to music to comfort herself and others, especially those in hospice care. Sarah has provided music therapy to adolescents, adults, geriatric psychiatric patients and those with Alzheimer's and autism.

She offers tips on how to repair a relationship before it’s too late, how to find the right song to soothe yourself and others and how to pack more living into your life while you’re still alive.

Sarah also shares what it was like to give the gift of life, as she donated a kidney to her uncle this year.

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Gratitude isn’t just a feeling, it’s a stance you take toward life. To be grateful is to consciously receive what you’ve already been given.

How? Start with the small stuff: The sunshine on your face. The hot water in your shower. The music in your ear buds. The fingers you can move. The knees that bend to pick up what you dropped.

Katie O’Toole Smith and Regina share their tips on how to make gratitude a daily practice so that what you already have is always enough.

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How do you write a book? Write one clear sentence, then another, then another.

Does it depend on muse or magic? Inspiration or perspiration? All of the above.

But first, find your why. Why do I write? To give glory to God. To feed His sheep. To comfort the disturbed and to disturb the comfortable. To spotlight someone small the whole world might overlook. To help people know they are not alone. To take people to places they don’t want to go but will never forget.

What is your why? Find that, and the words will flow.

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Growing up poor gave Beth Macy a love for outsiders and underdogs. As a writer, she’s on a quest to hold power accountable. Beth talks about how to follow what moves you and write about it.

Beth is the author of three bestselling books: "Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping and a Mother's Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South;” "Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local -- and Helped Save an American Town;” and “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America.”

As a journalist, she learned to follow the stories that made the little hairs on the back of her neck stand up. As an author, she follows what grabs her soul and won’t let go.

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The Buddha taught that life is suffering and all suffering is caused by preferences and desires.

Find out how to love and accept what is, just as it is. Acceptance sounds passive, but it isn’t. It’s the ultimate path to a new freedom and a new happiness.

Katie O’Toole Smith joins me to talk about how to allow the flow of Life to carry you along to your perfect good and the highest good of all.

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Katie O’Toole is a human sparkler, but she didn’t start out joyful. Her dad was an alcoholic. She started drinking at 11 years old. She got sober at 16. She became an unwed mother at 21. Then she entered the male-dominated world of selling cars and became known as Katie The Carlady.

Katie sells and leases cars, but has also made it her mission to educate consumers with tips on buying and leasing vehicles in the articles she writes for the Cleveland Jewish News, Cleveland Womens journal and on her podcast, Carlady Talk.

Katie, who has been sober 33 years, talks about how to choose joy, no matter what life chooses for you.

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Rob Snow lost his best friend in a sky diving accident. Joel died on his birthday. He was 31.

Then a strange thing happened: Joel spoke to Rob in a dream. He had a message. Rob followed through on it and just might have saved a life.

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Poetry has the power to save lives. It saved Honey Bell-Bey from a life of poverty and the pain of having no dad around. She wrote her first poems in crayon. Now she uses her words as a tool for social justice.

Honey is the Poet Laureate of Cuyahoga County, a National Poet Laureate Fellow and Founder and Director of The Distinguished Gentlemen of Spoken Word.

She wrote about the girl she was: “Every little black girl needs to take a trip to the lost and found…to remind herself that she is the prize.”

She wrote about being guilty of “spiritual disregard.” In the poem, “I rest my case,” she files a grievance on herself and tells the judge, “I was the one stealing my own spiritual wealth.” She shares how to find and use your most authentic voice and find your own P.O.E.T. — Power Over Emotional Trauma.

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If you want to get and stay motivated, find an accountability partner. Being accountable to another person every week will keep you on task and has the power to change everything in your life, including work, parenting, decluttering your home and finally writing that book inside you.

Hear tips on how to find the right accountability coach, someone who will give you both compassion and a kick in the pants.

Regina and her accountability partner, Vicki Prussak, have had a weekly accountability call every week for a year. In that year, Regina launched a podcast, a new website, a weekly newsletter and wrote a memoir that was just launched in Poland. Vicki created new jewelry collections, redesigned her website and launched a newsletter.

The possibilities are endless when someone reminds you what’s possible.

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Cancer gave Greg Justice an expiration date he refuses to honor. Just two months after his wife died from brain cancer, he got diagnosed with Stage IV non-small lung cancer. Most people don’t live 5 years past that diagnosis.

Greg didn’t waste any time on pity parties. He had spent three years nursing his wife, Nancy, through treatments for glioblastoma multiforme, including an experimental polio trial that was featured on “60 Minutes.” Greg did the treatment for lung cancer, then decided to get busy living. He quit his job. He traveled the world. And he fell in love and got married.

He talks about how to squeeze more life out of the life you have left, no matter how long that is.

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The shortcut to serenity is to pause often. Imagine how much kinder the world would be if we all paused before we spoke, posted or reacted.

Sheltering in place, wearing masks and the uncertainty of the pandemic has people panicking, at least on the inside. When we each take time to pause, it works better than a mask to protect us from spreading fear and resentments and helps us regain our serenity.

When you W.A.I.T., you can ask yourself, Why Am I Talking? Or Why Am I Texting? Sometimes waiting is the best option until our better angels can get in control of our words and actions.

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No matter who stands before her in court — murderers, rapists, drug dealers — Judge Joan Synenberg tries to separate the behavior from the person. She balances justice with mercy and compassion for all.

She also has a sense of humor and a gavel that reads, “Move over Judy, here comes Judge Joanie.“

Judge Synenberg fought to free and exonerate a man who spent 20 years on Death Row after she learned police and prosecutors hid evidence that would have exonerated him. She also presides over Recovery Court to help those dealing with sexual trauma and addiction.

She has made social justice her life’s mission and aims to “act justly, love mercy and walk humbly” with God.

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