Start Here: The Best of the Podcast So Far
A curated collection of the most loved, most lasting episodes. The ones that still speak, still guide, and still hold weight.
My podcasting journey began in 2018 under the name Intentional Documentary, a space for photographers, storytellers, moment-seekers, and meaning-makers who wanted more than just pretty pictures. We valued real life over posed portraits, and the honest, uniquely meaningful stories behind the images.
But if you’re not into photography, hear me out.
It may have started as a podcast for documentary family photographers, but the stories we explored became doorways into the nuanced, complex, beautiful territory of being human: how we remember, connect, and create meaning. Bonus if there was a photo involved. ;)
The show evolved into a home for deeper reflection: on memory, loss, identity, creativity, and the stories we carry.
Through our conversations, we learned that what we chose to document — the moments we called our most meaningful — were never just about the pictures themselves. They revealed what mattered underneath: our values, our longings, and the ways we made sense of our lives. In a way, we were always talking about why the tiny stories mattered in the first place.
Photography was just our medium to see and hold onto the stories.
Nevertheless, it’s been nearly four years since the last episode aired! I had just renamed the podcast Dangerously Good Stories, thinking I was starting a new podcasting chapter… but life had other plans.
Today, the show is a body of work that’s quietly reached nearly 40,000 listeners (IAB stats), all without ad spend, algorithms, or loud campaigns. Just story, substance, and slow growth for a super niche audience. Now, as I prepare to relaunch the podcast with new episodes in late September 2025, I wanted to look back before we move forward. I revisited every episode, updated titles and descriptions, and culled what no longer aligned.
The full archive lives on both Spotify and Apple Podcasts (or wherever you get your podcasts), if you'd prefer to explore by platform.
What remains is a public archive of 80 meaningful conversations that still speak to the heart of what DGS has become — and where it's going next.
What follows here is a Best Of collection, curated by theme, grounded in emotional resonance, and selected to reflect the soul of this work. Each list includes 5 core episodes, plus a few quiet gems in the Honorable Mentions and its own ready-to-listen Spotify playlist to make exploring easy.
The lists below are:
Best of Overall
Best of Business and Branding with Heart
Best of Story-Driven Photography
Best of Life, Loss, and Rebuilding
Best of Identity and Personal Evolution
Best of Story Work Foundations
Honorable Mentions
Many of the episodes featured here include guest interviews, resources, or bonus links. You can find those all on the archived episode page here.
Whether you're navigating personal change, exploring new creative rhythms, or craving a deeper connection to your own life, I hope you find something here that meets you where you are.
What’s ahead for Dangerously Good Stories?
The next season of Dangerously Good Stories will:
lean more deeply into themes of meaning-making, difference, nuance, and neurodivergence,
explore what it means to rebuild after collapse — when life turns up a hard stop: trauma, loss, chronic health conditions, and more,
dive into growing values-aligned professional and business lives, and
use story work as a tool for reclaiming self, identity, voice, and living a life that feels more right for you.
New episodes will be released on September 23rd, 2025.
In the meantime, these episodes below are a lovely, timeless foundation.
Enjoy the stories.
Start here: Overall Best of DGS
These episodes hold the soul of Dangerously Good Stories: personal, practical, and emotionally resonant. A playlist about noticing what matters, holding on to the quiet details, and finding yourself in your own story.
7 Exercises to Gain Total Clarity Around What Matters Most (To You)
Awareness is a Gift, Especially Before It’s Gone
Parent Loss and the Details That Remain from Lora Wallenstein
The Exotic Everyday: On Seeing, Legacy, and Loving the Life You Have with Chloe Lodge
5 Ways to Use Your Stories as a Guide for Meaningful Living
Loosen Your Grip: 5 Stress-Shifting Questions for Big Life Seasons
This Year, Cultivate Meaning (Not Just Milestones)
I’m Grieving My Business. Now What?
When the Holidays Feel Different: A Reflection on Change and Story
'“Monkey Up”: A Memory That Almost Slipped Away
🎧 Click here to listen to the full playlist on Spotify →
Best of Business & Branding with Heart
For the creatives, caregivers, and slow builders. This collection of episodes invites you to create a business that supports your real life, one rooted in self-trust, sustainable systems, and story that feels like you.
Launching for Revenue Without the Burnout with Kyla Roma
Marketing with Identity, Not Noise with Nick McArthur
Assessing the Damage (and the Goodness): A Real-Time Look at Failure, Love & Business
My Monthly Review Practice for Clarity and Self-Trust
Life-Proof Your Business: 10 Ways I Created Breathing Room to Heal, Move, and Rest
🎧 Hear all 5 episodes on Spotify →
Best of Story-Driven Photography
Images that carry meaning. Whether you're behind the lens for clients or your own life, these episodes explore photography as legacy, memory, and a quiet act of noticing what matters.
Documenting What Matters: Love, Legacy & Everyday Storytelling with Seshu
Sharing Your Truth Through Photography (Not Just the Highlights) with Angela Yarbrough
The Day-to-Day Can Be a Visually Loaded Feast, Too with Paul Gero
Redefining Meaning and Documentary with Courtney Holmes
Togetherness, Blind Spots, and the Stories That Stay with Linsey Davis
🎧 Hear all 5 episodes on Spotify →
Best of Life, Loss & Rebuilding
For the seasons when everything shifts. These Dangerously Good Stories (previously Intentional Documentary) episodes offer space for grief, identity loss, creative burnout, and slow rebuilding. They meet you in the quiet in-between, offering story work as a way through.
Parent Loss and the Details That Remain from Lora Wallenstein
How Photographs Impact Healing After the Sudden Loss of a Child with Brittni Schroeder
Awareness is a Gift, Especially Before It’s Gone
She Meant to Document That Dinner. Then the Wildfire Came. A conversation with Nicole Miller-Cline.
Here’s How I Write My Way Back to Myself: 11 Journaling Approaches
🎧 Hear all 5 episodes on Spotify →
Best of Identity & Personal Evolution
Unmasking, rediscovering, becoming. If you’re in transition — creatively, relationally, or neurologically — these episodes explore how we change, how we name ourselves, and how story can steady the process.
The Power of Your Future Self, Hypnosis, and Identity Shifts with Aubrey Vejvoda
Shed Your Mask, Reveal Your Voice with Eboni Rivera
Loosen Your Grip: 5 Stress-Shifting Questions for Big Life Seasons
If You Had 24 Hours to Live... On Living a Meaningful Life on Your Own Terms with Alexandra Franzen
Zoom In, Zoom Out: A Practice for Clarity, Creativity, and What Matters Most
🎧 Hear all 5 episodes on Spotify →
Best of Story Work Foundations
Your toolkit for meaning-making. These episodes teach the heart of story work at Dangerously Good Stories, from everyday documentation to reflective writing, presence practices, and emotional memory.
How Documenting My Life Helped Me Come Home to Myself (And Your Stories Are Ready to Bring You Home, Too)
Video Journaling as a Practice of Witnessing Yourself with Jason McGarva
5 Ways to Use Your Stories as a Guide for Meaningful Living
7 Exercises to Gain Total Clarity Around What Matters Most (To You)
You’re Already Preserving Your Life. Here’s How to Make It Count.
🎧 Hear all 5 episodes on Spotify →
Honorable Mentions
Quiet gems worth exploring.
These episodes didn’t make the core five in each category, but they’re rich with insight, honesty, and story work in motion. Perfect for a deeper dive.
On Separation, Showing Up, and Making Art Anyway with Michelle McKay
7 Sneaky Ways Creatives and Service Providers Self-Sabotage in Business
Trying to “Elicit Emotion” in Your Photography? Listen In.
Let It Be Easy: Flow, Alignment, and Reclaiming Play with Susan Ferraro
Your Creative Work or Business Stopped Feeling Fun? Try These Gut-Check Prompts
Nature, Loss, and Learning to Listen Again with Jessica Hachey
Why You Need a Memorable Story Collection for Life, Legacy, or Business (And How To Start It)
Creating a Legacy Box: For You, For Them, For Later
Want the full list of guest names and in-episode resources mentioned?
Browse the full episode archive →
The full archive lives on both Spotify and Apple Podcasts (or wherever you get your podcasts), if you'd prefer to explore by platform.
A Quiet Invitation
Whether you're arriving here for the first time or returning after a long pause, I’m so glad you’re here! These episodes were made slowly and with care, not to add more noise, but to create space.
Space for thinking, reflection, remembering, and returning to yourself.
Each one was recorded across shifting seasons of my own life, and I know they’ll land differently depending on yours.
As we move toward the relaunch of Dangerously Good Stories in September 2025, I hope this collection offers a warm re-entry point or a quiet companion for the season you're in.
If an episode speaks to you, I’d love to know. Hit reply, or share a playlist with someone you care about.
You can also save your favorite playlists to revisit when you need them most.