Romance author Joss Richard joins us this week to talk about what happens when something that's lived quietly inside you for years finally asks to be shared.

We talk about the leap from corporate to a creative life, how writing fan fiction became her quiet training ground, and the months of 5 a.m. mornings that led to It's Different This Time — a story that began in the Notes app on her phone and turned into a USA Today bestselling debut.

It's a conversation about creative permission, evolving dreams, and what it looks like to follow the thing that feels most true to you, even when it asks you to let go of the plan you thought you had.

A quick update: since we first aired this episode, Joss's debut has continued to be beloved by many, and Let's Kiss and Tell — her follow-up — releases this August, with a book tour to follow. We're bringing this conversation back as a reminder of where it all started.

Her debut novel, It's Different This Time — a New York-in-the-fall, Nora Ephron–style second-chance romance — is out now wherever books are sold.

We talk about:

• Our cross-country drive with our rescue dogs (and how friendship sometimes sneaks up on you)
• Fan fiction 101, "shipping," and why writing for yourself changes everything
• The moment she realized she wanted to create her own characters
• Starting It's Different This Time in her phone's Notes app, then writing the rest before work each morning
• The practical and emotional side of leaving a full-time job
• Redefining success when the goalpost keeps moving
• Why romance is serious storytelling — about love, loss, and everything in between
• The truth that what's meant for you might just be what you never thought was possible

If this episode leaves you thinking about the part of yourself that's been waiting to be seen — share it with someone who might need to hear it, or leave a review so others can find it too.

Connect with Joss Richard:
📚 Pre-order Let's Kiss and Tell
🎟️ Get Tickets for the Let's Kiss and Tell BOOK TOUR!
📚 Order It's Different This Time
✨ On Instagram → @joss.richard
🌐 On her website → https://www.jossrichard.com/

Connect with The Truth Is:
🎥 Watch the full conversation on YouTube
📸 Follow on Instagram → @thetruthispodcast

Credits
Hosted by Kathryn Flaschner
Video Production & Editing by Anton LaPlume
Music by Will Savino
Visual Identity by Sarah Gainer & Jonathan Bush
Advised by Natalie Tulloch

If you missed this one when it first aired in October 2025, here's your moment.

Kathryn sits down with her sister, Alyssa Flaschner, for a conversation about paying attention to what makes us feel alive, and how change really happens: not all at once, but through tiny degree shifts that slowly realign our lives toward what feels true.

In the stillness of COVID, Alyssa began to notice a quiet pull toward something else. What started as weeknights with her cookbook collection soon turned into a decision to take herself—and her curiosity—seriously. That choice led to nine months of commuting to New York City for culinary school—twenty-seven weekends in a row—couch surfing with friends and family and rolling a little suitcase full of knives through the city. Nine months later, that curiosity had become a craft—and eventually, a full-time role on the team at Philadelphia’s acclaimed restaurant My Loup.

Together, we talk about what it means to find the thing that makes you come alive—and to keep following it, even when it asks you to rewrite the life you thought you were building.

In this episode, we talk about:

• How perfectionism shaped Alyssa as a competitive dancer—and the ways it still shows up in the kitchen
• The difference between chasing achievement and feeling alive
• How small degree shifts add up over time—where slowly, you start to take yourself seriously, and the things that once felt impossible begin to feel real
• The awkward, necessary process of being a beginner again
• What it’s like to work in an environment where you can’t fake it—and how that kind of honesty builds confidence
• The people who remind us of our own strength, and why support systems matter more than we think

It’s an intimate, sister-to-sister conversation about curiosity, courage, and learning to trust the pull toward what makes you come alive.

Visit My Loup, where Alyssa is part of the culinary team
Read Alyssa’s essays on Substack
Follow Alyssa on Instagram → @alyssaflash

Instagram → @thetruthis_podcast
YouTube → @thetruthis_pod

Video production and editing by Anton LaPlume
Hosted by Kathryn Flaschner
Music by Will Savino → wsavino.com
Visual Identity by Sarah Gainer & Jonathan Bush
Advised by Natalie Tulloch

This episode first aired in December 2025. We're bringing it back because it's one that stays with you.

What if the clarity you’re looking for isn’t “out there” at all, but already inside you — waiting for the moment it comes into view?

In this conversation, NYT bestselling author and adventurer Jedidiah Jenkins sits down with us to talk about revelation, habituation, aging, and what it means to build a life you’re actually comfortable being yourself in.

Jed talks about how his books — from To Shake the Sleeping Self through Mother, Nature and now his upcoming fourth — trace the long arc of becoming, moving through the mother wound, his religious upbringing, and the early experiences that sharpened his curiosity. He shares why he sees revelation as the moment when previously collected pieces finally organize into clarity, and how trusting the authority of his own questions has guided his life and work.

We talk through:

• Revelation vs. information — why most “aha” moments are old truths finally landing in the right order
• Habituation and the hedonic treadmill — how we get used to everything, even the life we once wanted, and how Jed disrupts that pattern
• How he now makes sense of the 30-year-old who biked from Oregon to Patagonia — and the life that opened because of it
• How his first three books became a trilogy of healing the mother wound
• Why living fully as yourself quietly liberates other people to do the same
• His eight-week, no-phone sabbatical in rural Colorado during the election — and what surfaced when the noise stopped
• Why he believes many of us are one sabbatical away from a breakthrough
• Entering the “youngest old person” season of life and finding a beginner’s mindset again in midlife

We also talk about the truth of the moment — how naming what’s real as it arises becomes its own form of presence — and how Jed has had to rebuild his sense of truth from the inside out after growing up inside a religious system that defined it for him. He reflects on learning to trust the authority of his own questions, and why that practice continues to shape his life and his work.

And yes — we talk about the leaf.
The one Kathryn caught during a silent walk at Jed’s retreat, the one that never touched the ground. Jed wrote on it: What falls will feed the new. It becomes a quiet throughline for this conversation about clarity, courage, and letting what’s no longer true fall away so something more honest can grow.

More from Jedidiah Jenkins:
• Website — www.jedidiahjenkins.com
• Instagram — @jedidiahjenkins
• Substack — jedidiahjenkins.substack.com
• Forthcoming fourth book — out fall 2026 (fun sneak peek at the process mentioned in the episode)

Connect with The Truth Is:
🎥 Watch the full conversation on YouTube → @thetruthis_pod
📸 Follow on Instagram → @thetruthis_podcast

Credits
Hosted by Kathryn Flaschner
Edited by Dan Croll
Music by Will Savino
Visual Identity by Sarah Gainer & Jonathan Bush
Advised by Natalie Tulloch

Kate Boyer is a Los Angeles-based stunt woman and actor who has built her career one leap at a time — literally. She grew up in Philadelphia with an explorer's mindset, found her way to martial arts young, and eventually packed everything into a Honda Civic and drove cross-country with a vision. What she found on the other side of that move became the foundation of a decade-plus career in film and television, doubling for actors and executing the kind of work that demands total trust in yourself and the people around you.

Kathryn has known Kate through their shared world as actors, and has watched up close what it looks like to build a self-led life in one of the most uncertain industries there is. This conversation is about the posture you have to take to do that — not waiting for the golden ticket, but deciding what the next move is and going. Kate is beginning to bring that practice to other artists, helping them find the clarity to do the same.

In this conversation:

• Growing up in Philly and the explorer's mindset that never left
• Discovering stunt work as an expression of art — and what it demands emotionally
• The Honda Civic move to LA and learning to listen to your inner voice
• Why fear is a muscle, not a wall
• The feeling on the other side of doing something you were afraid to do
• What it means to bring your truth into a room rather than perform what you think is wanted
• Building toward work that serves other artists

Follow Kate: Instagram The Truth Is: Instagram | Video production and editing by Anton LaPlume. Music by Will Savino. Visual identity by Sarah Gainor and Jonathan Bush. Guidance and advising by Natalie Tulloch.

Wilfredo Perdomo is the founder of DESTINO, a wellness-focused hospitality and lifestyle concept he's building in the Catskills. As a Cuban-American raised by immigrant parents, his foundation is rooted in working hard, creating beauty with what you have, and making people feel genuinely welcomed. He spent eight years working with Drew Barrymore, most recently as president of Barrymore Brands — building products with heart and creating things people truly connect with. Now he's bringing all of that into something entirely his own: a micro-resort and retreat space centered around wellness, design, nature, and emotional reset. His mission is to make wellness feel accessible and less performative — to give people permission to pause.

Kathryn met Wilfredo during those brand-building years. This conversation is about what it looks like when you take everything you've learned and take a faithful leap into yourself — and what it costs, demands, and opens up when you do.

In this conversation:

• The spiritual and emotional initiation of leaving a career to build something of your own
• The ego humbling of building your brand in public
• Divine action as a daily practice for navigating uncertainty
• A breathwork realization about his mom that reframed everything
• The Surrender Experiment and the balance between trust and showing up to do the work
• What it means to stop deferring the life you actually want

Mentioned in this episode: The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer

Follow Wilfredo: Instagram DESTINO: Instagram Website

The Truth Is: Instagram YouTube

Video production and editing by Anton LaPlume. Music by Will Savino. Visual identity by Sarah Gainor and Jonathan Bush. Guidance and advising by Natalie Tulloch.

Charlotte Jackson is a private chef, cofounder of CANDID, writer, coach, and host focused on helping people have better conversations with themselves and each other. She's also one of the original minds behind Reading Rhythms, the silent reading community that started on a rooftop in Williamsburg and caught the attention of the New York Times and the Today Show.

Charlotte is one of those people who wants to do all of it — and rather than questioning what to eliminate, she's letting it all coexist. A lot of us feel the limitations, and even the slow death, of the linear career path, and Charlotte is a living example of what's possible when you loosen your grip on that model we inherited. When you give yourself permission to experiment rather than arrive.

In this conversation: running two experiments at once, Internal Family Systems and the warring parts within us, why she's allergic to the word strategy, how to embrace your vague dreams and follow your Fun-tuition.

Mentioned in this episode: Run Two Experiments — the framework Charlotte references for navigating a career transition: one experiment for the thing you can't stop thinking about, one for the skill you can offer tomorrow.

Follow Charlotte: Instagram Substack

CANDID: Website Instagram

Reading Rhythms: Instagram

The Truth Is: Instagram YouTube Substack

Editing and video production by Anton La Plume. Music by Will Savino. Visual identity by Sarah Gainor and Jonathan Bush. Guidance and advising by Natalie Tulloch.

Tazin Khan is a cyber risk strategist, digital rights advocate, and the founder and CEO of Cyber Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to making digital safety education accessible, human, and community rooted. Her work is driven by a simple but urgent belief: everybody deserves to experience the internet without harm.

That belief didn't come from a boardroom. It came from growing up Bengali in post-9/11 Virginia as one of the only Muslim families for miles. From translating immigration documents in fourth grade. From living in and out of her car at nineteen while working three jobs and meeting a stranger who she emailed every month until she got hired. From watching her father get scammed on Facebook and realizing the gap between what the industry knows and what the people most at risk are ever taught.

Tazin has spent over 13 years in cybersecurity — across Fortune 10 companies, government agencies, and grassroots organizing — and what she's built with Cyber Collective is something the industry was never going to build for itself. A community-rooted, feminine-designed organization that meets people where they are and asks the questions the sector would rather not answer.

This conversation goes deep into all of it.

We talk about:

• Growing up bicultural and what it taught her about empathy, translation, and pushing back
• The Michael Kors moment that changed the direction of her life
• What she learned — and what she couldn't unsee — in corporate cybersecurity
• Why the internet's harms are not the user's fault and what accountability actually looks like
• Building Cyber Collective: the vision, the near-burnout, and what's coming
• Feminine design principles and what it looks like to run an org aligned to your body and your values
• The question she asks herself constantly: am I doing this for ego or for impact
• What proximity to power does to you and how she stays honest about it
• Why to get far, sometimes you have to stop

What stayed with me after this conversation is that Tazin is doing exactly what this show believes is possible: taking the most personal work and turning it outward. Her story is her methodology. And her methodology is changing what the internet is allowed to do to the people it was never designed to protect.

ABOUT TAZIN KHAN

Tazin Khan is the founder and CEO of Cyber Collective, a nonprofit making digital safety education accessible, human, and community rooted. With over 13 years of experience spanning Fortune 10 companies, government agencies, and grassroots organizing, her work has reached more than 5.5 million people globally. She holds a master's from NYU and has been featured in Forbes, Harper's Bazaar, People Magazine, and on CNN.

Tazin on Instagram | Cyber Collective

CONNECT WITH THE TRUTH IS

Instagram: @thetruthispodcast

YouTube: @thetruthis_pod

Substack: Kathryn Flaschner

CREDITS

Hosted by Kathryn Flaschner

Production & Editing by Anton LaPlume

Music by Will Savino — wsavino.com

Visual Identity by Sarah Gainor & Jonathan Bush

Advised by Natalie Tulloch