Forged in Silence: Steve Knapp on Recovery, Resilience & Connection

Some stories are forged in silence. For Steve Knapp, the weight of carrying secrets finally gave way to a single act of truth—the night he admitted his drinking and chose to change his life.

In this conversation, Steve shares his powerful journey from addiction to recovery and the lessons he’s carried into fatherhood, personal growth, and his work creating safe spaces for connection and honest dialogue — especially around men's mental health — through his podcasts, Through the Glass Recovery and Forged in Silence.

With raw honesty and vulnerability, Steve reflects on:

• The cost of self-abandonment 
• The courage it takes to come back to yourself.
• Why strangers can sometimes offer the safest spaces for healing.
• Redefining fear as something to walk alongside, not run from.
• Creating connection in a world that often feels disconnected.

Whether you’ve faced addiction, carried hidden shame, or simply struggled to be present in your own life, Steve’s inspiring story is a reminder that we don’t climb life’s mountains alone—and the view is always better when shared.

👉 Listen, share, and join the conversation at thePIGpodcast.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Steve's Journey From Addiction to Recovery
• 9:50 Disconnection in a Connected World
• 16:13 Self-Abandonment and Sobriety
• 28:24 Reconnecting With Self and Redefining Relationships
• 39:35 Fear, Mountains, and Personal Growth
• 56:12 Men's Mental Health and Creating Connection
• 1:07:40 Finding Home and Creating Impact

Transcript

The Sisters: 0:05

Some stories are forged in silence when, the pain of carrying secrets becomes heavier than the fear of speaking them out loud. For Steve Knapp, that moment came the night he made the bold decision to tell the truth about his drinking and face the lies he carried and the life he was hiding. He hasn't had a drink since. What followed was both heartbreaking and hopeful the unraveling of self-abandonment, the ending of a marriage and the rediscovery of who he could become when he chose honesty, authenticity and kindness over silence, secrecy and shame. Today, Steve joins us to share his journey from addiction to recovery and the powerful work he's now doing to create safe spaces for healing and connection, especially around men's mental health, through his podcasts Forged in Silence and Through the Glass Recovery.

The Sisters: 0:56

Whether you're in the depths of addiction or simply navigating the struggles of everyday life, Steve story is one of resilience, perseverance and grace, and a reminder that none of us, no matter what we face, are ever truly alone. Welcome to The P-I-G, where we explore life, love, loss and legacy through real conversations and meaningful stories, with purpose, intention and gratitude. I'm Kellie and I'm Erin. We're sisters, best friends, sometimes polar opposites, but always deeply connected by the life and love of the woman who taught us to be courageous and brave, our mother Marsha.

Kellie: 1:51

So the question, Steve of the day: are we getting the heartfelt versions of Steve and The Sisters today or the ranty ones?

Steve Knapp: 1:59

I'm going to guess you're probably going to get the heartfelt version of it of Steve today. We'll see if the ranty version of me comes out. If you want to check out the ranty version of me, you can see it on Forged in Silence, because every once in a while - I don't go off in a bad way - but there are certain things that touch my heart, that I get passionate about, and that's where the rants come from.

Kellie: 2:23

Well, we are just absolutely thrilled to have you here today, Steve. You do host two podcasts - Through the Glass Recovery and Forged in Silence podcast - and we look forward to learning about them as we have our conversation today ( you and your co-host, Julie Miller) and kind of how those podcasts came to be. And I really love what you're doing with creating connection and connection being the opposite of addiction. And as we were preparing for this recording today, I'm just going to dive right in...

Kellie: 2:54

Because, you said a few things in your bio and in the information that you sent to us that I found very powerful. So I'm just going to start there.

Steve Knapp: 3:04

Go for it. I'm a pretty darn open book.

Kellie: 3:08

All right.

Steve Knapp: 3:09

Main reason for that is I've had enough stuff in my life, so it's just not worth the effort. It's just not. I'd just rather live in integrity instead.

Kellie: 3:20

Well, integrity is where it's all at right. Today's conversation is really going to explore your powerful personal journey through addiction, self-discovery and really living a purpose-driven life, rebuilt from the bottom up. You said something that I want to share right off the bat: "I told the truth, the whole shameful truth, about the lies I had told to hide my addiction.

Steve Knapp: 3:46

Yep, heartfelt Steve...

Kellie: 3:46

"and absolutely powerful one human being can be. Heartfelt Steve Yep. We'd love to hear more about your story to the work that you're doing today to really bring awareness to the importance of mental health, and I know your focus really is on men, but every single thing I know we're going to talk about today applies to all human beings, and so this, this is an interview for everybody.

Steve Knapp: 4:33

Yeah, it might be a focus on men, but we all need each other. Here's the ranty, Steve. We all need each other. Rant incoming. W hen you have podcasts, you live a portion of your life on social media. You just do, whether you're out there sharing what you've created, or you're out getting ideas, or you're trying to find guests. That's where we're finding each other and there's a lot of us out there. And in the midst of all of that, because algorithms now have really changed to what is grabbing and keeping your attention not necessarily what you like, but it's all about your attention.

Steve Knapp: 5:17

So, you get stuck on one thing and then it'll continue feeding that same stuff to you. So, on the Forged in Silence podcast, when I log into that account and I start looking at it, I get two things. I get versions of women hating on men. Then I get like the sexual version of whatever is floating around on the internet and it's not like I click on any of it, and it's not like I click on any of it and it's not like Robbie clicks on any of it.

Steve Knapp: 5:48

We've literally had this conversation. But those are the two things that show up on the Instagram feed for that platform, outside of the people that I follow, which I find really interesting. I see that stuff and I see like we're already disconnected in a world where we're told we're super connected and then we use these devices as a means to stay connected to people or, you know, share a picture or whatever it may be. We're missing getting outside, we're missing going out for coffee, we're missing actual human interaction, and I'm just starting to figure this out now and I'm seeing it in what looks like epic kind of proportions. We just don't get out. We don't knock on a door. Anymore we don't pick up the phone and actually make a phone call before we text, because we're worried about it being intrusive.

Kellie: 6:51

Yeah, we really are. We've become a very disconnected culture. And AI is contributing to that, probably now more than ever. But the more technology grows, the greater our disconnect and the less our connection, which is why I think the work that you're doing in connecting people together and you have reconnected to yourself.

Steve Knapp: 7:10

Yeah, do you want to go back to that quote that you read from what I wrote?

Kellie: 7:15

Sure, and the second part of that was you said, "strangers, save my life.

Steve Knapp: 7:20

Absolutely.

The Sisters: 7:21

"The people who didn't know me had the greatest lasting effect on who I am and what drives me today.

Steve Knapp: 7:29

A stranger is someone who has no strings attached to any of your problems.

Erin: 7:33

Wow.

Steve Knapp: 7:34

Nothing. So, when a stranger reaches out and says I'm willing to listen, what do they have to lose? Their time. And when you reach out to a stranger, what do you have to gain? Their perspective. And so it's way easier to say something hard to a stranger than it is to your spouse or your best friend or someone that you love, because you're so afraid of not having the right words or you're so afraid of hurting their feelings or you're so afraid, like the laundry list happens there, even though you need to know you need to have that conversation, it needs to exist in your life. You need to create the rip in the relationship to make it better. It has to happen. But what happens when you don't have the words? And what happens when you're too scared?

Steve Knapp: 8:22

I told a lot of my secrets, a lot of my secrets, a lot of the things that... but when I say secrets, I mean the things that I was ashamed of. Even the drinking and driving with my kids in the car, like literally open bottle while they're sleeping in the back - stuff I'm not absolutely proud of at all. Like that stuff hurts. But the only way to not be alone in the things you're ashamed of is to let them go Some of the safest spaces I've found to share. The shame is for people that have no strings attached at all. Some of those people have become my best of friends.

Kellie: 9:00

What an incredible gift that is and I think that, Steve, that's a testament to the greatest gifts are held within our deepest, darkest secrets and shadows and only coming face to face with that. Only being truly, deeply, authentically honest with ourselves, first and foremost, above everybody else and not. You know, you don't have to tell the world everything, but that is the only place that we will ever be able to capture and embrace and hold on to that gift, that goodness, that greatness that exists in those spaces.

Steve Knapp: 9:39

It's like one of those things that makes you want to be a stranger to somebody else because there was a stranger that helped you dig yourself out of that hole. Right? There is always a piece of my heart that is going to make time for someone who says, can you listen? And there'll be a part of me that'll want to give advice. Right? There will be the fix it part. And as I grow up - and I say grow up, I'm 43 years old - but as I grow up, I feel like I've only really started growing up since I was 39 because I quit when I was 39. So, I'm just over four and a half years sober.

Steve Knapp: 10:13

So when you talked about that day when I finally put the bottle down, I haven't touched it since. I have done everything in my absolute power to put as much distance between that and that version of myself that I possibly could. That man gave me one thing the courage to stop, and I'll forever be grateful for that. There's so many lessons in my past that I get to take with me today that helped me be a better man, that being one of them when that credit card bill was found and my now ex-wife approached me and she gave me the option. It was like almost $800 worth of booze purchased in that month on that credit card.

Steve Knapp: 11:01

And I had a friend who was... we knew he had an alcohol problem, and she said are you buying booze for him? I sat there in silence thinking of do. Do I throw this guy under the bus to save myself?

Erin: 11:16

Would have been easy to do that...

Steve Knapp: 11:18

Or do I stop carrying the lie and the lie is huge when we don't deal with things, we just put them in our emotional backpack and we carry them around with us for a really long time. And, like, I feel sorry - and I feel compassion - for people that walk around angry all the time because they're the ones that have an emotional backpack that isn't being taken care of. And until I face those and talk about them, because I'm a huge proponent of talking about what it is that you're struggling with and until we can figure our own version of giving it away, then we just like the darkness that goes into the light. It's just the one, it's one less thing you get to carry. You make it real. As soon as it leaves my mouth, it becomes real. Then I can do something about it.

Kellie: 12:07

So, Steve, would you be open to...

Steve Knapp: 12:12

The answer is yes.

Kellie: 12:15

Taking us from where you were to that day, because we'd love to get to know and have everybody listening, get to know you before and you now, which is going to carry us into what you're doing and the passion that you hold in your heart today for helping people unload that very heavy emotional backpack, which is something that's essential for making progress in life.

Steve Knapp: 12:46

Big time, big time. Before that day, I did a lot of the things this is the first thing that comes to my mind. I did a lot of the things that other people told me I should do, without really making my own decisions. For me, I get the option to have a promotion and have the conversation with my wife, and it would be like, "you should do that. You should do that, right, it would be good for you know, you get off shift work, you get off this, and even in that, like I was on the fence.

Steve Knapp: 13:19

And then the career path that I took was one that my father suggested to me, and in that suggestion was you know, "I'll pay for your school, and I'm grateful for this, don't get me wrong. I'll pay for your school, take this course, you'll do well, you'll make money. And so I took chemical production, engineering technology, and after I graduated that and my marks weren't great, but I graduated, and actually I'm going to rewind one quick minute. One year into that course, I was questioning whether that was the thing that I wanted to do and you're going to get a kick out of this one. I grabbed a pamphlet for the radio and communications program at Lambton College in Sarnia (Ontario, Canada) and... I said I know you're going to get a kick out of this... like I'm a podcaster now, right?

Erin: 14:07

You're like, "h, I will never use that.

Steve Knapp: 14:10

Well, that's what my father told me. He found the pamphlet and said "that's stupid, you're not, you're not going to do well there. You know what I mean and I felt shamed. Felt not shamed, I felt ashamed of wanting to explore something different than the suggested path. So not understanding my voice, not understanding a lot in life, I was still young and so okay, if I do these things and then I'm going to live a good life. That's essentially what you know. Follow the path, do the thing. You know what I mean. So I followed the path and I did the thing and in my early to mid 20s my drinking picked up, and then in my 30s my drinking picked up even more. Like I have don't have a lot of memories from my 30s Like that's a decade that's pretty much lost in my mind.

Steve Knapp: 15:02

In the meantime, I worked at the same company for 19 and a half years. Right out of college I worked in a corn wet milling facility. I made high fructose corn syrup from corn. S o like, after nine years, I got promoted to being supervisor of the guys that I worked with, and a couple of years later I became in charge of half the operation of the facility, and I had that responsibility for basically the remainder of my career. And as time went on, I created more and more distance from myself.

Steve Knapp: 15:34

And what does that look like? Like a greater disconnect. If I have words for it today, I would call that self-abandonment. And you don't just abandon yourself in one fell swoop. You say yes to a lot of things that don't align to you because you're afraid to say no. And over a period of time, every one of those little cuts adds up to creating a life that I don't know how to deal with anymore. And I used alcohol to cope 100%. I used alcohol as my way of getting through the day and getting through the hard, and so on and so forth, and so I developed that mechanism as a way to continue the disconnect, even though that was my way of soothing it continue the disconnect, even though that was my way of soothing it.

Kellie: 16:26

What I heard, Steve is and you're so passionate about connection now, but that time of disconnecting from yourself, that era of self-abandonment, what filled that gap was that liquid...

Steve Knapp: 16:51

Straight up 100%. I mean, I was members of... I was a team member of a dodgeball team. You cannot connect with people when you're one, two, three or 18 sheets from the wind. You just can't. When you aren't present with yourself, you're not present with anyone else. It is just the lie you tell yourself to keep yourself comfortable from dealing with the thing you need to actually deal with. So, was I having fun with those people in that moment? Yes, absolutely I was. But if I was to take away the booze, was I having fun? It's a question I can't answer because that's how I live my life.

Steve Knapp: 17:30

As soon as you take away the booze, because it became my main method of showing up in life, who the hell are you now? Who the hell am I? At some point in time, it became basically my best friend. And you take that away, and what do I have left? My mother said to me as I was crying on the phone - because she doesn't understand - I don't expect her to. "How come you have a wonderful house?

Steve Knapp: 17:57

you have a beautiful house out in the country - and I did - you have brand new vehicles, you have a beautiful wife, you have two beautiful little children. How can you be hurting so much? The house, the car, a relationship that's really disconnected because I was disconnected from me. It makes the rest of it really not matter, because how am I supposed to show up and give when I don't even know what that looks like for me?

Erin: 18:37

So, what you said was so powerful about the fact that we can't connect to other people if we are not connected to ourselves, and I've actually never heard it worded quite like that. You know, we hear you can't love others if you don't love yourself first. You know, and things like that. But that connection piece is critical.

Steve Knapp: 19:30

What does that look like, though? Like how do you explain that to someone? The word connection is like this... first, it's a buzzword. Next, is what is really involved in it? Right? How do I reconnect with myself? What's involved in it, right? How do I reconnect with myself?

Steve Knapp: 19:48

I have to start making decisions and trusting my gut and doing things that other people aren't telling me to do. The disconnect from me is I don't trust myself. I have a lack of trust in my own ability, and until I start actually taking an action towards proving to me that I can trust the decisions that I'm making. First of all, I have to make them as simple as "what do you want for dinner. If you constantly say I don't know what you want and you add that up over a decade a simple little decision like that how are you going to know what food you actually like? Because you're not making the decision. You're just deciding based on the choice of someone else, whether you like what you're eating or not. Where's your own commitment?

Steve Knapp: 20:33

So that's where it started. But I did something that apparently is really crazy at the very beginning of anyone's recovery, after I wrote an email to the local AA people, because that was the only recovery that I knew existed.

Steve Knapp: 20:48

And I got sober in the middle of COVID. The next day I picked up the phone and I called my parents, and I told them I had a problem with alcohol, that I was going to need their support, and I had no idea what that looked like. Tears, absolutely in tears, the whole time. The next day I invited my wife's parents over for dinner and I told them face to face that I had a problem with alcohol and I needed their support, and I didn't know what that looked like. Then I called her sister and then I called my sister. So, I told immediate family on both sides within the first four days of my sobriety. I figured if I wasn't going to stand behind it, I was going to start standing in front of it. I felt like the right thing to do. And I'm going to say today, it was 100% the right thing to do, even though...

Erin: 21:39

I was just going to say it was very brave.

Steve Knapp: 21:49

You can be brave when you have no idea what the result of whatever your actions are going to be. It's really easy to be brave, because in that moment, I mean, I called HR at work and told them that I had a problem on day one and whatever those consequences were going to be, I was willing to face them. Go ahead and rip the band-aid off. Let's get the tears. Let's start being honest. And I think what I found in that first night - and it was embarrassing and shameful and all of that - I think I found so much freedom in that I was just willing to keep going. I was dying inside to say something.

Steve Knapp: 22:26

There were nights where I was crying, I was a puddle on the floor, three sheets to the wind. Three sheets to the wind, a puddle on the floor saying, "I need this to stop. What this was, the voice inside of my head was I need this pain to end, and I didn't know how to explain it. There was no other words for it. There was nothing. It just needed to stop. I didn't know. It was the alcohol part that needed to stop. I was going to get sleep studies done and all of the rest of the things and see an ear, nose and throat specialist, because I wouldn't blame alcohol for what my health problems were. I remember telling myself that when I hit 200 pounds I was going to have to do something different.

Steve Knapp: 23:13

I didn't quit until I was 215 pounds.

Kellie: 23:17

I think it's interesting that, and you bring up something that's really powerful, is the awareness and that deep knowing inside of your being that something had to stop - that there was a pain that existed - but looking everywhere else except directly right into the eyes of that pain. And I also think it was really interesting, as you were talking about bravery, that the bravery was standing up to and looking that pain in the eyes. Then the courage comes in sustaining that over time as that scab starts to heal, that wound starts to heal and it gets itchy.

Steve Knapp: 24:04

Oh yeah, and it gets itchy. You start waking up to a lot of the things that I didn't create boundaries for - a lot of the ways that I felt I should be treated better. You wake up to the disconnect that you created. I woke up to the disconnect that I created. That's on me 100%. Even in the relationship, you do the best you can with what you have. Eventually, our relationship had to come to an end and out of respect for her, I won't go into too much detail into that, but our relationship had to come to an end. It came to a point where we weren't willing to get past resentment and, okay, I guess we're gonna have to do something different and at some point, you have to start believing in yourself.

Steve Knapp: 24:54

At some point you have to leave the comfort zones that you create in your life to go and find out what's really out there. Because I lived in a really tight little safe box. And the first time I packed up and I came out to Colorado to visit, it blew my box wide open, absolutely.

Erin: 25:16

Where did you live? Where were you from? Where are you from originally?

Steve Knapp: 25:20

Southwestern Ontario. So, like London, Ontario. I lived in that town and around that town for basically the 19 and a half years that I worked. So there's London, Sarnia, a little bit of Toronto suburbs area. But I came to the mountains to visit a friend, which was Julie, who's the co-host of Through the Glass Recovery podcast, and we went on a backpacking trip up to Blue Lakes for one night... and my whole world changed. In that short backpacking trip, I realized that I didn't need a lot to live, I didn't need things to be happy. I couldn't believe it. I walked up to Blue Lakes and when you get to the top of that trail and then you can just see the mountains and the lake, I cried for half an hour. I couldn't believe that that's where I was. I just couldn't. You got to be kidding me. Is this what sobriety has to give me?

Kellie: 26:18

Wow, what a gift for you in that moment to give me.

Steve Knapp: 26:22

Yeah, everything changed.

Steve Knapp: 26:24

Everything. From there on, I stopped collecting things I didn't need, I began to declutter my life and I began to understand that there was really simple things that could have such a great impact, like a one burner stove and a frying pan.

Steve Knapp: 26:45

It sounds silly when I say that, but I literally designed my truck so I could live out of the back of it. I got a 2019 Dodge Ram, and I got pullout storage in the bottom of it ,and I've gone on road trips and lived out of that thing for 40 plus days - all the way down to Big Bend National Park in Texas, right on the Rio Grande, all the way up to Glacier National Park in Montana.

Erin: 27:11

I was just there!

Erin: 27:12

That's so cool...

Steve Knapp: 27:13

It's gorgeous, it's absolutely gorgeous up there. And, uh, there's certain moments you get when you do crazy stuff, that realize that you're okay with who you are and you're okay with living in your own mind. I drove. The first time I came here, I flew. The second time I came here, I drove, and that's 1,600 miles, and at some point I got tired of listening to the music and I just I realized that I was missing the drive because I was just paying attention to everything but. So I turned off the music and I sat with myself for like seven hours in complete silence, just driving. There was a lot of me that was just afraid of being alone with me. Where was my mind going to take me? If I could keep myself distracted, I won't have to listen to it. If I can keep myself distracted, I won't have to face the truth. And that's what I was avoiding was the truth.

Kellie: 28:13

How was that seven hours of silence for you? What happened to Steve during that time?

Steve Knapp: 28:28

I cried a lot. I get these moments in my mind where, like, an epiphany will kind of happen and something kind of like blows up. You get this idea, someone says something in a way that you wish you could have put words to. Then you have your a-ha moment because someone put that puzzle together for you, because they've linked three or four emotions, and you're like whoa, and what will happen is for me is things like it'll be like a video of events in my life that start to get explained. L ike I see a form of how I'm abandoning myself in a relationship, or with friends, or whatever that is, by having a conversation with someone. And then I sit up at night and the videos of where I could have made a decision that was better for me play in my mind. And it's just, it's like, it's motivation to do better today, because I can use this one of two ways.

Steve Knapp: 29:22

There's always two ways you can do this. I could use it and I could feel regret and I can feel the grief and I can create my own suffering. I am fucking good at that. I know how to do that. I know how to create my own suffering. How can I create the, because I have all the power and all of the control to create the opposite in my own mind as much as I do with my own suffering. What perspective do I want to give it? Julie will always give me crap. "You're like... You're always the freaking optimist, always. I refuse to see the world in a light that is to dampen good energy, because we need it, we need it, we need to share it, we need to be a part of it. You need to glow one way or another. I'll walk around and if someone says you're glowing, absolutely, I love it. I know what a negative impact looks like. I know what one does. I lived being a negative impact.

Kellie: 30:23

I'm going to share another quote of yours, and I'll preface this by saying I love that you were willing to spend so much time in silence. Recently we spoke with a very good friend of ours on the podcast, Dr Matthew Arrau, who is in music leadership. And we talked about that music is created on a canvas of silence. And our lives are melodies and harmonies, and sometimes we hit sharp notes and flat notes, and we, you know, miss the key. And all of it comes together in just such a beautiful way, and our lives wind up being this very beautiful piece of creative artwork of music as it unfolds. And so I think that, as we continue to talk about the concept of mental health and mental awareness and emotional awareness and emotional intelligence, especially in a very distracted, very busy, very loud world where it's easy to be and stay disconnected, the courage to be in the silence - which is why nature and time in nature is so powerful and we've been talking a lot about that today and in a lot of our episodes - is so powerful.

Kellie: 31:48

But you said this, "I don't know where this path will lead me, where I'll go. I just know that I need to be honest, authentic and kind. I know what wasted time looks and feels like. I know what my personal darkness is. I never want to meet that man again and I also want to make him proud of who he will become. Yep, as you were talking, that's what I heard.

Steve Knapp: 32:17

Yep. When we were texting, just before we came on, you mentioned "journey and I think, in some ways, journey and adventure are two terms that we can flip and flop. It's been an adventure and it's been a journey, and every mountain I seem to climb, there's always another one. There's days where I wake up and I feel like I can move those things. Another one there's days where I wake up and I feel like I can move those things.

Steve Knapp: 32:47

And there's days where I wake up and I go just give me another one to climb and either one I get to overcome whatever that mountain is, whether I move it or I climb it. I used to be afraid of the mountain. Really early on in my sobriety I decided that me and fear were going to have a different relationship and instead of it being something that controlled me, I was going to walk alongside it. We were going to be friends. We're still friends today. But now I simplify it. I have words for it today. I didn't before. I ask myself, like it's very, very often today where I'll feel a feeling and I can feel myself retreat, "Okay, you're afraid of that. Is it good for you? Yes, Then why aren't you?

Steve Knapp: 33:38

"You can.", and I always look at the why. There's always the why, because the curiosity is there. What belief system do I have that creates the fear of the thing I know is good for me Because it's a belief, it's an agreement I have with myself that I just haven't explored yet. So it's time to explore and then go and rewrite the damn thing.

Steve Knapp: 34:00

I am absolutely terrified of public speaking, so I took a speech class last semester for the sole purpose to discover what the heck was going on there. First of all, I had to write. Then then I had to stand in front of people. My fear of judgment? Whoo geez. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't know it was that bad. Like you, you think, man, "You've recorded a hundred podcasts. How is this difficult for you? You know what I mean. You speak up about your recovery, you're not afraid to be vulnerable, yet you stand up in front of a whole bunch of people and it's vulnerable as hell. So I was like, okay, it's time to rewrite this one. Start doing the thing that scares you because you know, know it's good for you. I just hate it when fear tells me not to do something that I know is going to either have benefit for me or impact for someone else Drives me freaking bonkers. It's like get out of your own damn way.

Erin: 34:56

Thank you. I was just going to say, I had such an interesting thought and picture that popped into my head when you were talking about the mountains. In my mind I was thinking about how, even when we're among the mountains, in between climbs, you are in a valley of some kind. And then when you made that statement of "I was afraid of the mountains, I was afraid of that climb and I very introspectively asked myself this question. But I would like to ask you as well, because I've experienced so many of the same things I think we all have. I think every person alive and certainly anybody listening to this podcast. This will resonate right.

Erin: 36:25

They can relate to being fearful of what's ahead and being fearful of that climb. It's going to be hard, like "that looks really hard. You know, Kellie and I were both born and raised in Colorado and now you live there, and you know, surrounded by these beautiful Rocky mountains and 14ers, and you know, and so it's easy, mountains and 14ers, and you know, and so it's easy to look at those ahead of you and say, well, that's gonna be difficult. But I asked myself the question and I want to ask you the question of are there moments where you then face that and have fear of what is ahead and a fear of climbing that mountain. But are we more afraid of staying in that valley if we don't climb?

Steve Knapp: 37:06

Here's what I've found. When I'm in the valley staring at the mountain, I'm in my comfort zone. That's the comfort zone I created after the last mountain that I climbed. And when I sit in that for too long, I stare at the peak of the next mountain, and discomfort is created for me. When I'm in the valley of comfort, staring at that peak, knowing that I'm walking that thing one way or another, how long do I avoid it before facing it? And let's talk about the mountain of me quitting my job of 19 and a half years, because this is what comes up for me, because this one was one of those where I sat in the valley of comfort because it meant change.

Steve Knapp: 37:55

And every time you climb the mountain it means change. That's what the mountain is, regardless of what it is. The mountain is change. And the fear is what's going to happen to me when I get there. What's going to happen to my relationships when I start climbing that thing? How am I going to change? Because it's going to change me. And if I change, that's going to change the relationships around me and are these people going to grow with me? And if you have an anxious attachment style like I had, then you're going to be even more fearful of any sort of change, because your change is going to create discomfort in your relationships.

Steve Knapp: 38:36

That was me to a T. If I stayed stagnant, then I kept others comfortable. If I stayed stagnant, then I kept others comfortable and I didn't have to face the change and dealing with the conflict that was going to arise through change, because that's what it creates. So when I left my job of 19 and a half years, there was a book, a recovery book written by a lady named Erica Spiegelman, called Rewired, and Julie went through that book with a fine tooth comb and I kind of followed along the journey through that book, but I never took that one as seriously as she did. One of the topics in that book was called "evolution. That's the one I avoided. I avoided that one like the plague, because as soon as evolution come up, that meant I had to face whether I was going to continue my job or not.

Steve Knapp: 39:23

When we talk about being comfortable in the valley, I would have to face that about every four months. Emotions pass... feelings pass. They all do. So, today I could be really upset about the fact that I need to make a change about the position in my job, and I really need to do something different about this. But if I wait that out for a week, it dissipates. Right, it's a problem now, but it'll dissipate. That feeling will dissipate. You'll start paying attention to the rest of the other things in your life that keep you busy, but it sits in your emotional backpack because it was never taken care of. So, every four months I had basically a scheduled three-day breakdown for about a year and a half until I finally said I'm not doing this anymore.

Steve Knapp: 40:10

So I started climbing the mountain.

Steve Knapp: 40:12

So it's kind of the valley of comfort. It's the new comfort zone that I create for myself after I climb the next mountain. And in recovery and just like the rest of us in our lives, there are like certain pillars right, we have connection with friends and stuff like that. And as long as you have connection with friends and connection with people, failure is so much easier to deal with. You have a place to land, you have a place to fall. You've created a sense of safety somewhere. Right? I had my recovery community. This is why I'm into men's mental health right now. I had somewhere to go.

Steve Knapp: 40:46

When you're addicted to something, there are services for you all over the place. Pick one. It's out there if you're willing to go and find them and if you're willing to go and do the work. They're all over the place. But what if you're just a dude who's lost and stuck? I look at myself. I'm like, what would 31-year-old Steve have done if he wanted help? Tell me what comes to the top of your mind when you look at what's out there for support for men that want to better themselves right now?

Erin: 41:14

I can't think of anything...

Steve Knapp: 41:16

Right.

Kellie: 41:17

It's really a taboo topic.

Steve Knapp: 41:19

100%.

Kellie: 41:20

And we were both born and raised farm kids, and what immediately comes to my mind is. "stop crying.

Steve Knapp: 41:28

Yeah.

Kellie: 41:29

And I know we were girls and the message was "stop crying. The boys, our cousins, I mean, they got that message even stronger and harder and faster than we did.

Steve Knapp: 41:41

Men and women are wired differently. We just are, and I think we have - rant, Steve time - we have this thing in society where equality is also the same. And what a great way to create more disconnection, right, than just accepting that women have a natural ability to be better at certain things and men have a natural ability to be better at certain things.

Steve Knapp: 42:13

Statistics show that. Let's not just ignore those, because we're doing fantastic right now at just ignoring that and creating a greater disconnection between men and women. Like, if you talk to people in my age group right now that are out there dating, they're like it is a mess.

Kellie: 42:32

Yeah, not a fun world. In that regard, there's so much disconnect, and the gender roles are changing, and the expectations, and the obligations, and you name it. I mean that is not a world I would want to be in right now. It is a mess.

Steve Knapp: 42:51

It's a bowl of soup that no one has a name for because the ingredients don't make anything worth eating.

Erin: 42:59

Well, it's interesting. Like tying back to what we were talking about in the very, very beginning, which was these devices, right? We're supposed to be so connected, right? And you look at social media and there is not a more polarizing platform than social media. So it's meant to connect us and instead it has completely divided everybody - on every topic - when it was just pictures of what you were eating for dinner and your pets... cute cat photos. But to what you were saying, like, especially as podcasters and self- marketers, we have to be on there.

Kellie: 43:48

That's where you are trying to create connection.

Erin: 43:53

Yeah, right, and like just to have a voice. You know, we need a place for our voices to be heard and that's a tough place to want to spend any amount of time. It is so polarizing and we live in a wild world.

Steve Knapp: 44:11

It's a double-edged sword. It's wild.

Kellie: 44:15

And I think it circles back to Steve, to what you were talking about just a little bit ago, which is this concept of completely having to redefine your relationships. Not only did you have to do that in your sobriety and everything that you've talked about, but we're redefining it through technology as well. Again, it's a bowl of soup. It's all a mess.

Steve Knapp: 44:39

You mentioned sobriety there and for the first two, two and a half years of my sobriety, like that sucker was my identity.

Kellie: 44:49

My sobriety was "I'm sober, Steve is sober.

Steve Knapp: 44:56

And people that know me would have said that too, because I was. And it wasn't until they really started bringing that up to me in conversation. Not that it was a bad thing, but like if I was going to have a conversation with you and I was about two years sober, you would have known that I was sober within the first five minutes of that conversation, somehow, because my life was so related and revolved around it so much. I'm growing out of that phase around it, so much I'm growing out of that phase. How do I introduce Steve without sobriety being the main part of my identity? The question I ask, one of the things that I ask now and I'm horrible at answering this still myself, is when we introduce ourselves to each other, we try and share who we are right, and we always start out with the "what. We start out with what we do, what we're passionate about or whatever. We never get to the actual who.

Steve Knapp: 45:53

It's all of the surface stuff that surround you that you share about who you are and it's not. Those are things you do, those are things you bring to the table. Those are your what's. What are your who's? What heart do you bring to the table? What's the passion, what drives you, what's the thing that's important to you? Tell me about that, and I still have a hard time putting words to my own stuff. But that's the who. That's the person I want to meet. That's the person I want to get to know. I'll share a great hike with you, but I want to know your who.

Kellie: 46:27

So how would you answer that question today, Steve?

Steve Knapp: 46:31

I just did this with some guys and I was horrible. Who is Steve today? He's passionate about figuring out how to connect other people with other people. He's willing to listen. And I think he just wants to see people better themselves. And there's something in there that always drives me to do this and get over whatever the heck it is. But it also drives me to learn more about what makes me tick, and try new things, and I don't know get over failure. Like trying new things and failure go hand in hand.

Kellie: 47:06

Oh yeah, failing forward. Right, we've all heard it, we've all had to do it. What I hear in all of that is not only the redefining of your relationships, then, the redefining of the relationships in the world, with work, with your children, but also with yourself, and we're all redefining those relationships with ourselves. So, what a beautiful question to ask. Who would I introduce myself? It takes me back to a couple of decades ago. I was working with a mentor at the time who challenged me to write my own personal mission statement. Erin, you probably remember that.

Kellie: 47:49

I do remember that, yeah, and that remains consistent today. But I think that that's a good exercise as we grow as humans, as we evolve through life - our experiences, our choices, our relationships. But redefining who we are and staying true to what is my personal mission statement who am I?

Erin: 48:15

Gosh, it's such a beautiful shift in perspective. And so, Steve, what you were saying, yeah, when you introduce yourself, so often the first thing that you share is what you do, right, typically for a job. Yeah, and like having this conversation and actually really thinking through that and processing that,

Erin: 48:36

there's so much that I offer and bring to the table in that position. I want those things to define me, but I would take those traits into any job, right? Or whatever I'm doing or how I'm living my life. What if we could really flip the script on how we introduce ourselves to people? I love that.

Steve Knapp: 49:10

That's the who, right? That's where one heart meets, gets to meet another. That's where we begin to share the parts of life that matter. Just because I'm an accounting intern, it means nothing other than the fact that if you might have financial problems, you could use me for help. But none of that defines the who. Anytime anyone asks me that question, you get a different iteration, because it's a very introspective question, right? It's the only person you get to look at in the mirror is you, and now you have to share that with someone. So it's super vulnerable right right now. What if I get that wrong, like a lot of us? You can imagine that, like the laundry list of things that go through your head before you even start spitting out the, the stuff that matters. Like now I feel like I need to do my values again and because I I think that's where that answer comes from you know my top five value sets. Then the words come from that. I think that's probably where that comes from. I'm just thinking off the cuff now.

Kellie: 50:09

Talking out loud.

Steve Knapp: 50:10

Yeah.

Kellie: 50:11

And as you're talking out loud, as we're all talking about this, what's so right in my face is that this is what we talk about on this podcast. This is legacy, this is your living legacy. It's not what we're leaving behind, although hopefully, our value sets and these beautiful aspects of who we are as human beings will be remembered, but it's what we're choosing to do in the moments that we have while we are here and the impact that we're creating in our relationships with the people that we connect with, in the conversations that we're having, in the fear that we're abolishing and the love that we're creating. We abolish the fear. We make space for love, and that really is at the heart of all of life.

Steve Knapp: 51:00

Absolutely, absolutely.

Erin: 51:02

That even takes me back to that breaking point for you of - and you touched on it at the absolutely beginning - you chose truth in that moment.

Steve Knapp: 51:11

To do the scary thing.

Erin: 51:25

You chose to do the scary thing and it changed everything.

Steve Knapp: 51:30

That one decision changed everything. The fear of changing relationships, my relationships. Even though I'm 1600 miles away from my kids, I had them this past month. I had them for all of July. And my relationship with my kids is better, way better. I can show up for them in an emotionally healthy way and have a conversation with them and deal with, "what are you afraid of? And deal with like literally sit in it. Even if it's a complaint about me, I can listen.

Steve Knapp: 52:03

I'm not going to take it personally, even if it might sting. It's not about me. I can separate the me from the them and I can put myself in those shoes and I can be empathetic. And I don't have to shut them down and I don't have to tell them how to feel. Instead, I can just let it exist and say, "what are we going to do about it? How are we going to do this together? I'm willing to apologize. There's so much growth in that. It's ridiculous when I hear it come out of my mouth, but when you talk about that, the thing that keeps coming up, Kellie, you mentioned earlier emotional intelligence and today, if it wasn't for reading for me it's the Encyclopedia of Emotion is Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown. It's my absolute favorite book. That book changed my life because I now had words for the way that I felt. And now I got to practice using the right words, because it blew my mind when I heard, if I use the wrong word for the emotion that I'm feeling, I'm going to feel my emotion wrong.

Kellie: 53:09

Creates confusion.

Steve Knapp: 53:11

Correct. And she has it so well written out in that book - 87 emotions that we all feel. Two-thirds of those are negative, yet we call them "bad. We shouldn't feel them. Yeah, we call them bad, we shouldn't feel them. One of the things that I learned after I quit. Because when you experience joy, like real joy, for the very first time after you quit, you're like raw dog in life in a really emotional way, because everything's new, nothing's numbed, you can't run from it anymore. So you think about a child where you take them to the store and they want that thing and you say no and they have a complete fit. I've done that inside so many times, had a complete fit over something that did not really need such a great emotional reaction to. But all I'm trying to do is validate how I feel Because I've invalidated my own emotions for an extremely long period of time that when they show up they big. Even though they small, they're big.

Kellie: 54:18

And it's habit. Yeah, it's just the habit. The habitual reaction.

Kellie: 55:14

Not a conscious response.

Steve Knapp: 55:15

T here were times where I felt like I was a five-year-old and you stole my sucker. Like, literal internal conniption fit. And there were times where I felt like a teenager all over again, just trying to figure things out. And I'm literally at the point now where I feel like I'm finally becoming the man I can respect.

Kellie: 55:31

Can we use that, Steve, as a stepping stone into your work with men and men's mental health today, because I think what you said was so profound: there were times when I felt like the five-year-old whose sucker got stolen and I was having an emotional conniption fit inside. We've all felt that. Men, women. It doesn't matter who it is. We've all felt that. I think, especially for men, the question is: what do I do with that internal emotional feeling that I'm having?

Steve Knapp: 56:05

Most of the time in men the internal conniption fit that doesn't get shown walks around with anger. That's where we go off to. We shut down, get angry, then you never get the full story. If you grow up getting shut down from not even just your emotions, just having - and I think everyone probably relate to this - you ever told someone a story you wanted to get something off your chest and you knew it was vulnerable and it got used as a weapon? You said something, you needed to get it off your chest and it was used as a weapon. Then you got teased about it later on and it was something along those lines, or it kept getting brought back up again. What do you want to do the next time? You don't want to share it.

Erin: 56:52

Not that.

Steve Knapp: 56:52

Because you don't want it to be used as a weapon. So when that happens over and over and over again, you just shut up. That's where a lot of people are at in general right now. And these bursts of disconnection that we see everywhere are the fact that there's a bunch of damaged goods and we're all responsible to repair ourselves. And as soon as we start taking responsibility to repair ourselves, we start becoming a really nice package for someone else to share with. And so, what do you do with that?

Steve Knapp: 57:22

The only way I was ever able to break through with that - and we're going to roll right back to connection - if I don't trust sharing my stuff with anyone, I'm never going to get over the... or I'm never going to receive the validation for... the conniption fit that I was having.

Steve Knapp: 57:40

And mind you, you still need to have a growth mindset, because if you sit in this in a victim mindset, you're just going to do it over and over again, because the pity and the sympathy is what you're after as opposed to dealing with it.

Steve Knapp: 57:51

So, I don't have to feel it this way again if I give it a perspective in which I can live with. And so the thought with Forged in Silence is, if we can create a space to give other men space to share what it is that's on their mind, so other men can see it too, then maybe we can inspire another guy to find the courage to say what he needs to say because he's tired of living in the valley that he created of comfort that is now just a valley of discontent. Climbing a mountain by yourself is a valiant thing to do. Climbing a mountain with other people? You can share the view... and you still climb the mountain. But the smile you get when you see the view partway up because you turned a corner and you got that little milestone in your life and you turn around and there's another smile that goes, fuck yeah, nice work.

Steve Knapp: 58:45

The smile, the reflection that we get from other people in times of sadness and in times of joy, happiness and awe and wonder. We need people so we can see the reflection of ourselves in a mirror through someone else. That's how we end up feeling really freaking good about ourselves. We can build ourselves up all we want, but if it's not shared, it's goddamn lonely.

Kellie: 59:15

That's really beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I was thinking too about the journey or the adventure climbing the mountain with others versus being solo. The camaraderie, the companionship, the problem solving, the overcoming obstacles, the safety in numbers, the security of that connection.

Steve Knapp: 59:38

Yeah.

Kellie: 59:38

We start together, we end together. That takes a lot of trust, right. Absolutely. Picking the right people, being emotionally intelligent and aware enough to know who you can and want to take on that journey with you.

Steve Knapp: 59:55

And I mean, if we don't allow ourselves to make mistakes, to bring those people along with us, then we're not going to find the right ones either. Because I mean, there is a lot of people. I had my own bout with permanence and impermanence, because when you think about permanence, that's me like "everything's going to be this way forever and I get to create a really good sense of comfort when I do that. And when I think about impermanence, then I allow seasons to exist in my life where someone can come and go and we can share pieces of our lives and then move on if that's the way things take us.

Steve Knapp: 1:00:34

And in my recovery I have shared a lot with a lot of people that are no longer people that I continue to share with. Not even that we've had disagreements, but we've just grown apart. We've gone different ways. Right, when you're in search of your own value set and somebody else is in search of theirs, you're going to find what aligns and you're going to find what doesn't. That doesn't mean you still can't be friends. Two different things are allowed to exist in the same room all at the same time.

Steve Knapp: 1:01:03

If I'm willing to allow my curiosity to be a part of the conversation.

Kellie: 1:01:08

I think that you just touched on something that's really critically important, and that is that as relationships are redefined, it's okay if the relationship does not continue forward as it existed before.

Steve Knapp: 1:01:25

Correct.

Kellie: 1:01:26

That once it was defined that way doesn't mean it has to always be defined that way. That redefining is sometimes saying "we're going to remain friends, we're going to carry mutual respect, love, admiration, appreciation, respect, whatever it is in our hearts, but it's okay for that relationship to change or for that person to no longer be a part of your life. If seasons of life have changed, value systems have changed, it's okay and that doesn't have to work against our mental health. That can actually work for our mental health and our emotional health.

Steve Knapp: 1:02:07

When one door closes, another one opens. It never happens right away, there's always a lag. When I moved here, one of the very first things that I decided to do was just show up and try and see what happens. But show up and try. Be there. Be present. Put effort in. See what happens. Man, has that ever changed my life! That opportunity alone. Like you wouldn't believe. I thought I had an internship this past December and I never bothered putting any effort into finding another one because why would you? Two weeks before the end of the semester, that went away. They couldn't take me on anymore. They lost a couple of employees and didn't have the time for me. What did I go back to? Show up and try. Just keep showing up, just keep trying. That was the middle of May. Middle of June? I landed in a better spot than I had before.

Kellie: 1:03:02

Victory.

Steve Knapp: 1:03:04

And that was just it. I'll just keep doing this. And I listened to a podcast with a guy named Sahil Bloom and it was Rich Roll talking to him and I saw a post of his and it was like your luck quotient, if you're sitting at home on your couch, your luck quotient is garbage, right? But if you're getting out and you're doing things and you're talking to people and you're connecting and you're putting effort in, your luck quotient multiplies, right? What happened to me there was that was all luck quotient.

Steve Knapp: 1:03:36

The job that showed up had nothing to do with where I was looking, but it had everything to do with the effort that I put in. It's wild. It's absolutely wild when I look at it and like, and I take a one giant step back. And when I was at the firm, I finally met my boss's wife and she said, "you're Canadian, why would? What are you doing here in Western Colorado? You know what I mean. Like, everyone asks me that question and sometimes I go in depth if I keep getting asked and sometimes I don't, and if you want to get into that one real quick, every time I came to visit here, like I loved it, absolutely loved it, and every time I left, I felt like I was leaving home every time I left and every time I left.

Steve Knapp: 1:04:20

And every time I left it got harder and harder. So I packed up my stuff because I applied to jobs and jobs and jobs and jobs at the beginning of last year. And I almost had one and that one fell through because of immigration stuff. They didn't want to bet on me. Fair, that's fine. If you're not going to invest in me, screw it. I'm going to go and do it myself. Stubborn. So I packed up my stuff, rented a room here, and decided I was going to move here. Gave myself three months to figure out how to stay - legally. I only had the stuff that could fit in my truck. That was it.

Steve Knapp: 1:04:56

Four days later, I went to CMU. Six days later, I got this email saying, "congratulations, we've accepted you plus a scholarship. Sometimes the universe slaps you in the face with an opportunity that you cannot just overlook, and that one. I always sleep on things Big decisions. There's the giant emotional reaction that shows up excitement, all the rest of this stuff. Sleep on it. It wake up tomorrow morning. Where does my heart lie? Where does my gut sit? I couldn't ignore that, so I accepted. I had three months to figure out how to stay, and it took me six days, and I've met really incredible people. The people on this side of the slope have been nothing but kind. I've been greeted fantastically. I honestly love it here. This place feels like home, so why not start making it one? So I'm here.

Steve Knapp: 1:05:58

The podcast was started because I needed to create a project for the entrepreneurship class that I took, and I was supposed to start a small business, but I couldn't do that because I hadn't been here long enough to do it legally on my visa. So I sent Robbie a text message and I said "hey, do you want to start a podcast? I need to create something for this course. And he was like yes, absolutely. He was thinking about it himself earlier that week and so we sat down that weekend, came up with a name and, in straight up Steve fashion, if he wants to do something, he's going to start it and it's going to be ugly when it starts and he's just going to figure it out along the way, Because if I don't start, that means I was afraid of something.

Steve Knapp: 1:06:44

And if I'm afraid of something and I know it's good for me, guess what I'm going to do? I'm just going to go and do it! So, like the friends that are really close to me know that if Steve says he's afraid of something, they're like "whatever, just wait, it will get done, he will do it and they're not wrong. So I did it. Within a week we had a podcast started and started finding guests and started figuring out what was important to us, how we wanted it to look, what it was going to be all about. Both of us are in recovery. I've known Robbie and I've met Robbie and I've hung out with Robbie the dude's my best friend and we kind of figured out what our mission is. We just finished talking about this and for me it's impact. If we just focus on one thing, for this podcast is impact, and let's just see where it takes us.

Kellie: 1:07:30

So tell us a little bit more about the podcast, because we'd love to support you in that process, especially as you bring more attention and greater awareness to men's mental health, as you're making an impact.

Steve Knapp: 1:07:47

Forged in Silence. The tagline for that is addressing issues men face that rarely talk about. It's all about giving men space to say the things that they need to say, whether it's loneliness or it's. I've got a guy that has overcome a porn addiction and I think that's a huge, huge topic that we need to cover. If we look at just the statistics alone between ages, this one blew my mind, and if you guys haven't heard this one, it's gonna blow yours. The age group that has the highest percentage rate of erectile dysfunction is 20 to 30.

Kellie: 1:08:29

I heard that and it shocked me, because my son and my nephews are all in that age group.

Erin: 1:08:33

Wow.

Kellie: 1:08:33

And I have girls in that age group. I mean it's incredible.

Steve Knapp: 1:08:39

When I heard that statistic, I was like, wow, this is how disconnected we are. This is the level of disconnection we're finding. We're young men, porn. We're getting so used to just being with ourselves that when we get the real thing, we don't know what to do with it. That statistic is wild to me. That seems, yeah, it's absolutely shocking. So there's things like that that are shocking, that I would like to, and I'm still working on shedding light on those things and addiction is going to be a part of the conversation, because that's also a ridiculous number. It's like three in 10 people or something like that. We all know someone. We all know someone right, that's alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, work, shopping, work like eating.

The Sisters: 1:09:25

It's all there, yeah.

Steve Knapp: 1:09:27

Eating. It's all there. So I mean like we'll touch on that. But there's more like the mental, emotional part and being available, both of us being available as men that are working on ourselves to give space to another man to share the things that he needs to share, to get off his chest. Give me a topic that's important to you right now and let's have a conversation about that. And if we squirrel, then cool, let's squirrel, let's go down whatever rabbit hole that we end up going down. But that's what we're all about. We're really all about doing that and, very slowly, we are hearing from men. They're reaching out to myself or Robbie or somebody who's been a guest on the podcast, because they've related to something that they've shared so closely that they found the courage to say me too. I got a message from a guy the other day. I got to thank you, we got to thank you.

Steve Knapp: 1:10:22

He's just a younger kid. I got to thank you, we got to thank you. He's just a younger kid and he goes, "because of your podcast. I've put more effort into the relationship with my father and it's gotten so much better, thank you. Like the side impacts, the stuff that happens when we're not watching because we're doing the right thing is so incredible.

Erin: 1:10:42

It's really beautiful and something that Kellie and I say all the time, talk about it all the time. It's kind of our tagline is: hearing the stories of others helps us create a more meaningful connection to our own.

Steve Knapp: 1:10:56

100%.

Erin: 1:10:58

And everything that you just described echoes that. It's exactly why we are doing what we're doing. There is power in that and a reminder that we are not alone.

Steve Knapp: 1:11:10

100%

Kellie: 1:11:12

And Steve, you said to me just before we started this conversation, talking about our stuff is so good for us, including the people that get to be witness to it. So I hope that today's conversation got to be witness to people, that it inspired them to connect to their emotions, to redefine their relationships, even the ones that they have with themselves, and to really feel like they have the space to be authentic and vulnerable enough to be comfortable in their own skin, because we are all amazing, genius human beings here to create something amazing to give to the world, because the world gives us so much every single day. And so, thank you, this was an absolutely incredible conversation, and I have had so much fun with you today. And I know Erin has a key question for us as we kind of wrap up, and we want to hear some closing thoughts from you as well.

Steve Knapp: 1:12:17

Fire away.

The Sisters: 1:12:19

We ask all of our guests what is your P-I-G? Our P-I-G is purpose, intention and gratitude. It is our driving force behind everything that we do on and off of this podcast. That is our P-I-G, and so I'm really interested to know if you have your own P-I-G - and I will nudge a little bit, because I actually wrote it down when you were talking about impact. I'm like, well, that's an amazing word! But if you have your own P-I-G, I would love for you to share it. Or, when you hear purpose, intention and gratitude, is there a word that resonates deeply with you, and why so? I would just love for you to share whatever's on your heart in terms of that.

Steve Knapp: 1:13:10

So what I did was I took purpose, intention and gratitude and I didn't just take a word, I used purpose and I was like, okay, the purpose is connection right, it is, and there's so many layers to that connection, but that is the purpose and I think that's been the purpose. Is connection right, it is, and there's so many layers to that connection, but that is the purpose and I think that's been the purpose for a really long time, without ever really putting words to it, whether it's using the platform of Through the Glass Recovery podcast as a form of that, or learning how to be vulnerable and also learning how to give space to other people in a way where they'll benefit from it. The mission, the intention you nailed it and that's the impact. That, I think, is the inspiration behind all of it is, you know, someone finds their nugget of truth. I wrote this down. Someone finds their nugget of truth and finds the courage to take action and make a change in their life is inspiring as hell.

Steve Knapp: 1:14:07

And even if it's something small, when you watch someone sit in a circle and go through their cycle of everything and then they say not today and they do something to change, I don't care if I'm involved in it or not, but that's impact. That's exactly what that is. And then for gratitude. I'm grateful for the people in my life that have bet on me when I couldn't, and they still do that today, now when I bet on myself. I wouldn't be in this house if it wasn't for a stranger that believed in me. I wouldn't be at this job. If it wasn't for a stranger that believed in me, I wouldn't be at this job. If it wasn't for a stranger that believed in me. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for a stranger that believed in me.

Kellie: 1:14:51

Beautiful Thank you. We all need people to believe in us, and I can't help but have a little flutter in my heart because not that long ago we were strangers. And yet, here we all sit. We had this amazing conversation, we've connected on a very deep and wonderful and purposeful level, and I know that these relationships will continue to carry forward as we support one another and we encourage one another. We share space in community together. And, Steve, I have to say from my native Grand Junction heart, and I know Erin shares this sentiment, how cool that you have found this place as home. Welcome home.

Steve Knapp: 1:15:39

Thank you.

The Sisters: 1:15:40

We're glad to have you here.

Steve Knapp: 1:15:41

Thank you for having me. Thank you for letting me join you on your show, Kellie and Erin. It's an honor, it really is.

The Sisters: 1:15:50

Well, we look forward to having you back. We'll do it again.

Steve Knapp: 1:15:53

Sounds like a plan.

Erin: 1:15:54

Yes, please!

The Sisters: 1:16:16

Hearing the stories of others helps us create a more meaningful connection to our own. We hope today's conversation offered you insight, encouragement or even just a moment to pause and reflect on the story you're living and the legacy you're creating. If something in this episode moved you, please consider sharing it with someone you love. A small share can make a big impact. You can also join us on Instagram, facebook or LinkedIn and connect further at thepigpodcastcom and if you're enjoying this podcast, one of the most meaningful ways you can support us is by leaving a five-star rating, writing a short review or simply letting us know your thoughts. Your feedback helps us reach others and reminds us why we do this work, because The P-I-G isn't just a podcast. It's a place to remember that, even in the midst of grief, life goes on, resilience matters and love never leaves. Thanks for being on this journey with us. Until next time. Hogs and kisses everyone.