A town can shape you before you notice. That’s the tension we explore as a longtime local sits with Jay Brown, who moved to Santa Cruz to be near his daughter and got pulled into its undertow of beauty, scarcity, and stubborn pride. We start with raw honesty—fear of influence, years of civic fatigue, and the ache of watching good ideas fall apart—and open into a bigger frame: what if surf culture explains more than surfing?

Jay and I trace how point breaks trained a mindset of safety and scarcity that spills onto land—into traffic patterns, housing stress, and the quiet competitiveness inside “mellow.” We talk third places, why they matter, and why they’re so hard to build when a community feels gatekept. The conversation pivots to intention and influence: using reach without performing for validation, and practicing a kind of civic repentance—naming what is true, breathing, and choosing better together.

Underneath policy and posts is the human problem: belonging. When people feel they belong, their nervous systems settle, creativity switches on, and gifts flow—products, services, and simple care we can all feel. Gatekeeping blocks those gifts. We wrestle with money as the language we all speak, AI as a non-answer to meaning, and the reality that markets mirror our choices. The aim isn’t a shiny win; it’s winning our hearts back, together, through small, durable commitments that make space for trust.

If you’ve ever loved a place that hurts you back, or wondered why a city can feel both open and closed, this one’s for you. Listen, share it with a friend who needs a little hope, and leave a review to tell us where you’re finding or building belonging.

A single dirt road outside Harare changed everything. What began as a UCSC field study became a three-decade commitment to an orphan school in Zimbabwe: ten classrooms raised brick by brick, a lifesaving well drilled through granite at 2 a.m., and a partnership powered by small donations and relentless trust. Alongside that story of patient progress, we open up about Santa Cruz—why we love it, why it hurts, and how traffic, safety, and policy shape whether we actually feel like a community.

We unpack how commerce and social values must work together if we want a vibrant downtown where families feel safe to stroll, eat, and gather. We talk candidly about homelessness and public space without slipping into easy outrage, and we explore the counterintuitive lesson learned in Zimbabwe: let people celebrate their steps forward. Progress isn’t just concrete and windows; it’s dignity, rhythm, music, and a reason to show up tomorrow. We also wade into hard global realities—Venezuela’s political shift, Zimbabwe’s constraints—and the uneasy truth that sometimes good arrives through imperfect means.

Threaded through it all is men’s mental health. Isolation grows when life gets expensive and fragmented; connection grows when we meet up, admit what’s hard, and serve someone else. If there’s a takeaway, it’s this: small, consistent acts outlast big speeches. Build the next block. Drill the next meter. Open the shop. Walk the neighborhood. Celebrate progress. Join us for a grounded, hopeful conversation about making home—here and far away—by doing the work together.

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What if the lost years of your career became the blueprint for a better way to lead, parent, and live? We sit down with Michael Dunn, a veteran of Apple, Netscape, and Joby, to unpack the IPO-era rush, the “sleep at the office” mythology, and the long tail of burnout that followed. This candid conversation about buying the wrong house in Texas, chasing stock spikes, and missing family dinners—became enlightening about rebuilding around people, patience, and a different kind of ambition.

Michael’s leadership philosophy was forged in the hardest classrooms: global teams that never slept, deadline death marches, and the sobering realization that pressure doesn’t make minds think faster. He explains how empathetic, equity-based management outperforms authority, why the Golden Rule can fail at work, and how to keep a team solving new problems instead of the same ones eighteen months later. Along the way, he shares how employees he empowered now lead at Fortune 100 companies—and still call to say thanks.

There’s a deeper current here too. Born with cerebral palsy, Michael chose resilience early, deciding to use his weaker left arm after watching another boy play baseball with deformed arms at a summer camp. Aging has equalized what disability began; humility and accommodation now live alongside agency. In faith, he moved from dogmatic certainty to a Christianity that embraces ambiguity and resists culture-war binaries. He’s liberal, hopeful, and relentlessly practical about where impact still lives: small circles, lasting relationships, and adding “a little spin” to each interaction.

We talk Santa Cruz gentrification, Highway 17 commutes, return-to-office tactics, and why a handful of gifted engineers can make or break a company. We also get a playbook for overwhelmed times: prototype your life, try small experiments, accept the failures, and keep hope on purpose. If you care about humane leadership, meaningful work, resilient parenting, and faith that breathes, this conversation will stay with you.

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