How Caring for His Dying Mother Changed the Man He Became
Through the experience of his mother dying, Steve Seidel’s journey shows how loss can become a profound source of meaning, connection, and renewal. As a TEDx speaker, entrepreneur, and founder of GentsJourney.co, Steve shares how caring for his mother, alongside the earlier loss of his father, transformed his understanding of identity, vulnerability, and emotional healing. Through deeply personal reflections on people-pleasing, masculinity, and the sacred final moments with his mother, this conversation explores how grief can break us open while also guiding us toward greater presence, deeper relationships, and the courage to rewrite our own stories.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:
- How childhood experiences of divorce and emotional responsibility can shape lifelong people-pleasing patterns.
- The moment Steve Seidel realized he was a “recovering people-pleaser” and how awareness became the first step toward healing.
- What it was like caring for his mother during her final years with cancer and being present in her last moments.
- How grief can become a teacher that reshapes identity, purpose, and emotional resilience rather than something to “get over.”
- The importance of storytelling and rewriting your personal narrative as a tool for healing and transformation.
- Why vulnerability is often misunderstood—especially in men—and how redefining it can unlock connection and strength.
- The “G.R.E.A.T.” framework (Gratitude, Reflection, Empathy, Accountability, Transformation) for navigating grief and growth.
- How Steve built Gents Journey to create safe spaces for men to process emotions, build brotherhood, and remove emotional masks.
- Why “connection is currency” in a disconnected world and how simple human presence changes relationships.
- Small shifts that create big transformation, including giving yourself permission to be seen, heard, and human.
- How joy can still exist alongside grief, and why healing is about integration—not replacement of pain.
SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS STEVE:
- How does grief become a teacher rather than a weight? And what role does storytelling, or rewriting the narrative, play in the healing process?
- What small shift creates the biggest transformation for people?
- How did the vulnerability within the Gents Journey circle help you find healing and meaning in your mother’s passing?
- How do you personally recognize that you are carrying something unhealed? What simple question has become a compass for you?
- If someone listening takes only one step toward healing today, what would you advise that step to be?
- When you think about healing, what’s the first misconception you wish more people understood?
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How Caring for His Dying Mother Changed the Man He Became
I hope this message finds each of you so very well. I could not be more delighted to welcome Steven Seidel, who is a TEDx and Keynote Speaker, an entrepreneur, and the Founder of the award-winning The Seidel Agency, where he amplifies the voices of artists and Fortune 500 leaders who are shaping culture and driving change. Steve is also a best-selling Author, the Creator of the top 10 Apple Podcasts Wolves Among Us, and the Co-founder of the men’s mental health community called GentsJourney.co.
At the core of everything Steve builds is a simple but profound mission. To do good, give back, and help people reclaim the stories that define their lives. Steve’s personal journey is one of profound grief transformed into powerful growth. He has walked through the loss of both parents, cared for his mother through her final years with cancer, and carried the weight of a childhood shaped by divorce and people-pleasing.
In 2020, as he welcomed a child, moved across the country, rebuilt his business, bought a home, and supported his mother through her terminal diagnosis, I want to ask Steve when did you sleep? Steve found strength in community, friendship, and the vulnerability he cultivated in the men’s group he founded.
Through it all, he has discovered that grief can be more than sorrow. It can become a source of connection, renewal, and the courage to rewrite the stories that shape our lives. Following the loss of his mother and the emotional journey surrounding his TEDx talk, Steve continues to walk the path of healing. He is learning in real time how grief can open us, reshape us, and ultimately lead to profound rebirth.
His story reflects the very essence of this podcast. That grief can lead to renewal, greater purpose, and deeper human connection. I’m looking forward to talking with Steve about his childhood, shaped by divorce and a lifelong pattern of people-pleasing, to the sacred time he spent with his mother in her final days.
We’ll also explore the friendship, connection, and deep vulnerability he’s discovered through the men’s group he founded. We’ll also talk about the larger terrain of grief, how it breaks us open, reshapes us, and can ultimately lead to profound rebirth. The subtle inner shift that often sparks the biggest transformation. How to recognize when we’re carrying something unhealed and more as Steve shares how loss has become a compass guiding him toward his healing mission in the world.
Steve, from my heart, a warm welcome to the show
Thank you, Irene, for that wonderful intro. Thank you for sharing your story and sharing a lot more before we had this conversation about really helping change people’s lives and giving them the tools that they need to shift towards happiness, joy, peace. It’s a beautiful intro. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak.
My pleasure. Feel free. Some people have asked me, “Can I use your intro?” those who read the show know that it’s really important to me that people I’m talking to, that they know who you are and they know your background. You’ve been through so much and you’ve come through it and you’re still coming through it and you’re healing, which is so admirable.
Recovering from the Middle: Childhood, Divorce, and People Pleasing
You’re inspiring others. Let’s start with your childhood that was shaped by divorce and a lifelong pattern of people-pleasing, which so many people reading this can relate to. Could you talk to us about how those early experiences shaped who you became and eventually sparked this powerful inner shift within you?
Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate it. It’s a constant journey. We’re all on this journey. There’s no destination. I was working with a therapist right after my mom passed away. I had tried everything and one of the things he suggested was a book called No More Mr. Nice Guy. If there’s any guys out there, check out this book. It’s pretty awesome.
Part of that upbringing that I’ve had from being the product of a divorce relationship was finding myself in the middle of my mom and my dad, obviously, and trying to figure out at a young age, how can I solve this? How can I make this right? How can I fix it? For me, it was constantly, there’s a disagreement happening, whether it’s who stays with who, the money that’s due, any family argument that would arise, I was the happy-go-lucky guy who would try to keep the stitching together, if you will, so that it didn’t rip open. It took me quite some time to realize it. Now I call myself a recovering people-pleaser, and I think that awareness and reflection is key towards the journey that we’re all on.
Back then, it felt as if I was in the middle and if I didn’t solve it, if I didn’t make it right, then ultimately, I think deep down inside, I thought that my parents weren’t going to love me, obviously. As we grow older, we realize that everything happens for a reason. They shape who we are. There’s a lot more to the combo of nature versus nurture. That’s what brought me towards the connection that I bring to everything and becoming a connector, if you will.
The Misconception of Wounds: Healing as a Continuous Journey
I actually admire that you’re such an open person. From all the things that you’ve done and how you grow and how open-minded you are to healing and helping yourself. I think it’s just wonderful. I want to ask you, when you think about healing from all that you’ve been doing, what is the first misconception you wish more people understood?
You ask amazing questions. The biggest misconception around healing is that you need to be wounded to heal or that something is broken or something is wrong with you that needs to be fixed. We are all human. We are all calling carrying baggage. I work with a mentor who says, “Do your best to leave your baggage at the door, just like you’re entering the airplane terminal.” We are all wounded. We all have flaws. Nobody is perfect. Healing is not meant to make you feel less than.
The biggest misconception around healing is that you need to be wounded to heal or that something is broken or wrong with you that needs to be fixed. Share on X
It’s not meant to make you feel like you are not full because we are all full in our own ways, in our own ways that we’re built. Talking about grief sometimes from a man’s perspective can make you feel inferior, can make you feel flawed, and can make you feel as if it’s not okay and I think it’s changing. We talk a lot about that with in my men’s group. What does masculinity mean in today’s day and age versus our parents who had one job? They had to look tough.
They couldn’t look out of their box.
Couldn’t step out of the box. Healing for me, and there’s no one-size-fits-all, and it’s a continuous journey. I’d like to say you heal forward, just like when you fail forward with a business. It’s going to happen. The more that you can be open, you have a safe community, and I think really sharing that with others is crucial so that they can see you for who you are. For me, I need to be mindful to not put myself in a position where I’m looking for validation where somebody says, “You’re okay, you’re going to do great.” It’s more of my own journey, but it does help to have people who see you that you can share this with.
GREAT: An Acronym for Daily Greatness
I also have a theory that men are afraid to be vulnerable so that when they are experiencing grief and all of that, they don’t want to open up because they’re supposed to be strong and they’re supposed to not be that sensitive or whatever. How can you advise someone if they are carrying something unhealed? A lot of people are not even in touch with their feelings and what’s going on to know that.
One of the things that I talk a lot about from a business perspective, but business, personal and professional, they’re intertwined. They all have to do with relationships. We want to do good, but we want to be great. For GREAT, it’s an acronym that I try to focus upon. Every single day, I want to be great. I want to deliver greatness. Yes, you’re going to have tough moments, you’re going to be down, you’re going to lose friends, family members, jobs. Loss is a part of who we are, but when we become overly attached to certain things, that’s where that suffering can come in.
Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. When we show up as being great, the acronym stands for being grateful. Being grateful for what we have. When we showcase that gratitude, especially people say when you’re in a tough position, give back, volunteer, start giving to your local community. The R stands for be reflective. Look at the mirror, see your greatness, see you for who you are, see the person looking at you in the mirror. Much like Michael Singer’s book, The Untethered Soul. That person that looks through those eyes is the same person it’s always been and it’s pure magic.
Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. Share on X
Being reflective and being able to recognize that. E stands for being empathetic. It’s okay to be down. It’s okay to have rough moments. Find that empathy in others as well. If they cut you off or they’re in the deli line and they get mad at you. They’re having a rough moment. It’s not any representation of what you did, which as a people-pleaser, we often think something I did upset them.
Sure, and it’s our job to fix it.
The A stands for accountable. Coming from Philadelphia, I’m a Philly native. I like to say what I do, do what I say, and be accountable. If you say you’re going to do something, your trust is imperative, but you also need to be able to trust yourself. Lastly is being transformational. I’m in a group, it’s actually led by Pat Croce, he’s the former owner of the Sixers, and when I moved to Lexington, I was having a rough time. I didn’t have a lot of friends, and as a mentor, he said, “Look, come from a place of happiness. Come from happiness, not for happiness.”
Oftentimes, when we find ourselves in a rough moment where there’s grief or loss, we look for this happiness outside of ourselves, we look for this joy outside of ourselves. That’s when it’s a great time to journal, to be reflective, to be with our thoughts, to listen to music, to find different ways that we can meditate so that we can tap into this happiness that exists within us.
Sacred Moments and the “Fries at the Bottom of the Bag”
I want to ask you also, which is so pivotal to your story, is your mother being with your mother in her final moments. Talk about grief and talk about the attitude, and how did that change you? Tell us about that. You talked a lot about that in your TEDx talk, which was wonderful.
Yes, thank you. That was a blessing. I initially almost said curse, but it’s not a curse, but for me that moment was a blessing. Obviously, but when you’re in that moment, it’s probably one of the most challenging things that you could ever think about. It felt like I was in a dream.
Your mother was taking her literal last breath.
Even now, when I talk about it, I’m getting my hands are getting clammy and emotional. I’ll set the stage. I lost both my parents within five years. I was living in California. My dad was sick. He had some issues and he had to have his leg amputated. My mom said, “Look, I think you should go visit your father.” it may be woo-woo, but I obviously I feel like we’re all connected and my mother and I had this deep profound connection where we could communicate without conversation. There are just countless things that have happened in our lives.
Come from happiness, not for happiness. Share on X
I went back, I saw my father, I gave him my blessings, I have two half-brothers, I said they’re going to be okay, we’re going to take care of them. He died the next day. I was the last person to see him, shake his hand, I told him he was going to have a granddaughter. Less than five years later, my mom, we moved t from California to Lexington in 2020 and my mom got sick. I said, “You’re going to come and live with us.” I was always a mama’s boy. She took care of me, we were connected, we would watch 20/20, we would read People magazine together.
I didn’t go out with friends in high school. She was my best friend. When she got sick, she came here and traveled back and forth, but the final moments, I told her that we were going to bring her to hospice in Philadelphia because we grew up in Pennsylvania and she lit up and she was very excited. My sister, fortunately, had just visited and had left the day before. For some reason, I didn’t leave, and then she was having some issues and I was with her in her final moments. I was able to FaceTime everyone in our family so they could all talk to her.
It puts me back into that position of people-pleasing, but for me, it wasn’t necessarily that. It was being a vessel or being an instrument to connect her with everyone that she loved in those final moments. It was very surreal. One instance that came, her favorite song that we used to talk a lot about was Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I actually had a playlist of her songs that I would play for her, so I played all of her music while she was going passing over, passing through.
We played Somewhere Over the Rainbow, or I did, because I was the only one there. We had a moment where she was struggling and our eyes locked and I saw one tear actually come down her cheek while she was listening to Somewhere Over the Rainbow. It was a blessing for her to allow me to be with her in those final moments. Afterwards, she always said, “Look, you are a teacher, you’re a therapist, you’re a coach, you help bring people together, you deliver them positivity.”
When the TEDx came around, I knew this was my opportunity to take her suggestion. I talk a lot in the TEDx talk about serendipity or things that happen, but there was just so many moments from the moment when I was calling all of her friends and a cardinal came and hit my window. A cardinal is meant to be a symbolic of somebody from beyond. Another cardinal would sit outside my window every single day while I would work.
She was saying hello. I have a poem that I wrote. It’s called Fries at the Bottom of the Bag. I wrote it when I was an artist in New York City about the moments when my mom used to pick me up after a sporting event or a day at school or we’d go to the mall. How those moments with her were just some of the most special moments that we don’t really realize, but in retrospect, those were the most powerful moments of sharing, of experience, of caring, of connection. We had two funerals. I read both of them at her funeral.
When I went to clean out her house at the estate sale, I was digging through some bags and at the bottom of one of the bags was a clear bag and the readers can’t see it, but I found a little telephone from a McDonald’s Happy Meal. I essentially found the fries at the bottom of the bag that I speak so highly about, about these moments that we overlook that the good times, those special moments, they’re happening right now before our eyes. Sometimes we don’t realize them, but they’re here and they’re ready to be cherished.
I also admire because I have 3 grandsons and 2 of them are becoming teenagers and everybody talks about the fact they’re going to pull away, they’re going to separate out, they’re not going to tell you a lot of things anymore, and you grew closer to your mom through those years, which is I think unusual and special.
For me, she was my rock growing up through all of the divorce and trials and tribulations and even dating, I met my wonderful wife, but while dating, I would call from California and tell her about the dates and all the people that I had met and it was truly a special relationship.
Grief as a Sidecar: Sharpening the Instrument
You’re really a sensitive guy and not afraid to show your vulnerability, which is so admirable. You’ve also said that grief isn’t something we get over. Teach us how does grief become a teacher rather than a weight? What role does storytelling or rewriting the narrative play in the healing process, which you’ve been going through?
I have it right here in my office. My mom bought me a sign a while ago, it says Write Your Own Story. We’re all writing our own stories, but there’s a multitude of stories that we have in our lives. There’s the story that we tell ourselves. “Look, we’re not enough, I need to get people’s validation.” There’s the story that we see why we step into the world and then also the story that we share. Grief to me it’s almost like a sidecar.
You have a little motorcycle. Grief is going to be there. It’s not going to go away. We’re always going to remember the things, the people, the pets, the jobs that we’ve lost. It almost is like when somebody dies, we can sharpen our sword and give us a moment of clarity where we can bring out the microscope or bring out the glasses and look deeper into what truly matters in our lives and cherish that. If somebody’s reading this and their mom and dad is still around, call them, text them, tell them how much that they mean.
That grief, it’s a teacher. Everything in life is a teaching moment. It’s all happening for a reason. What we go through, we grow through. It allows us to be stronger, more sensitive, whatever that looks like for you. It’s different for individuals, but it’s happening so that we can sharpen our instruments. It’s not happening to us, but it’s happening for us. Losing my mom happened for me because everybody’s going to lose their mom. I had a best friend reach out and say, “You’re never really a man until you lose your parents or your dad.”
That was a great quote for me. It almost if you think of symbolic, you think like you’re in battle, if you will. We’re not in battle, we’re just dodging and weaving and releasing things. I think the more we grow, you talked about our third chapter in life, instead of holding on so tight, holding on to those stories like a clenched fist, we start to release them. We release our stories, we release our experience, and we give them away so that others may benefit from them. The more that we can share these stories and what we’ve gone through, we’ll find that others can be inspired and hopefully live a better life because of that.
What would you say is the small shift that creates the biggest transformation for people?
A small shift, I think, is allowing yourself the permission, giving yourself the permission. Oftentimes, I’m not the right person or it’s something as simple as like, “Why not me?” People say, “My story doesn’t matter, I don’t matter.” allow yourself the permission to share your experience, whether it’s personally or professionally. I think professionally, you’re wanting to have that cultural alignment with your jobs. You’re seeing a big change in people with the gig economy and creating their own position.
If you’re a leader, you’re giving yourself permission to be open. You don’t necessarily need to share everything but allow yourself to be human because when we’re human then we can have empathy. Especially in an age of machine learning and AI, when we can allow ourselves to be open, honest, and available then we can connect on a deeper level. I think if you give yourself the permission and realize to one story or to one person, to the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world. Realizing, give yourself permission, why not you?
Connection as Currency: Reclaiming the Hero’s Narrative
You also talk a lot about connection becoming currency.
Yeah, I think right now, more than ever, connection is crucial because as we become disconnected from technology and society, you see it a lot more with young men who are playing video games, etc.
Yeah, when they’re someone’s eyes to talk to them?
Nobody’s looking eye to eye. One thing I teach my daughter is immediately remember an individual’s name. When you remember an individual’s name, it shows that you care. Even if you’ve just met them, look at them, ask them their name, ask them if they’re named after anybody. You’ll be surprised about the magic that unfolds. They’ll share a story just like we’re talking about and then you begin to build a connection.
I think oftentimes, from a connection standpoint, that’s the currency. That’s the trust that we have. When we can connect with a best friend, we can connect with a stranger, we can connect with a colleague. You’ll notice that if you watch any Disney movie, there’s always an animated character or it’s a person. It’s just like Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey. In order for them to get to the promised land or to get to the end of the movie, connection is their currency. They connect with either a best friend, they connect with a love interest, they connect with a little animated animal, you name it, but that allows them to see that they have the strength within them because they have connection.
They have brotherhood, they have a sense of belonging and meaning. By the end of the second act, Joseph Campbell, this is his words not mine, is all is lost. That’s when this connection that they have, maybe the friend leaves and it’s up to the hero to realize that they have the power within them to reclaim the narrative and to reclaim their story and then the happy ending.
Gents Journey: Removing the Mask for Masculinity
Speaking of connection becoming currency, I would really love to hear about this men’s group you created called Gents Journey. To be honest, when I read about it, I was excited because I think there’s too few resources for men. I think that’s wonderful that you’ve created this. Can you tell us about how the vulnerability within that circle helped you to find healing and meaning in your mother’s passing and how did the friendship and community you found reshaped your relationship with grief? I want to ask you more about Gents Journey about how the group works, how often you guys meet and all of that. I think it’s a wonderful resource for people.
Yeah, so that group that I mentioned, one thing we talk a lot about is vulnerability is invincibility. Oftentimes, that’s just a touchy word for men. For us and for me, I was vulnerable when I was in a tough situation. Instead of putting your hands up and saying, “I give up,” put your hands out and say, “I surrender. I surrender to the story, I surrender to the scenario, I surrender to the situation,” because it’s happening for a reason and we might not know what it was.
When I moved here, I had a one-month-old. I had a virtual company, the pandemic happened, my mom was sick, so I was trying to take care of so I was at a position where I really didn’t have much time, energy, love anything and I knew I was being stretched entirely too thin. I took a moment to myself, obviously it was maybe a couple of weeks, but I realized I needed someone or something to share some of these things with because my wife was too busy dealing with tons of other things and my best friends, they’re doing their own stuff.
I thought about friends that were fathers, that were founders, and that were of the fellowship. They had a sense of faith. I knew if they were founders on entrepreneur, they’d have a flexible schedule. If they were a father, they’d have a lot of the similar issues that I was experience. If they were of the faith, then they would understand how to be spiritually minded. We started meeting once every week and it allowed me to find a sense of community. I talk about it in my TEDx talk.
I had to reconnect to who I was. I lost that sense of connection, then I had to rebuild that community because I didn’t have one and then last step was to reclaim that narrative or reclaim that sense of purpose. Through these weekly meetings every Monday, we would talk about life, we would talk about loss, bankruptcy, we would talk about losing my mom. It gave me what I needed in order to instill a sense of love, belonging and to find that love for myself again because I was giving an awful lot of it away. I didn’t realize really who I was anymore. They helped me find that sense of purpose.
Vulnerability is invincibility. Share on X
I think you also gave people permission to be real and vulnerable and authentic in their pain without and be able to discard all the masks that they were wearing to protect from that.
We say that a lot. That’s one of our slogans that our co-founder said. Remove the mask for masculinity because we all wear masks in everything that we do. It’s a lot easier to do it in a group of men that you trust and honor versus social media, although people do that now, which is great. You’re seeing a shift. There are some men who are open and vulnerable. We’ve actually had discussions about that word vulnerability where some of the gents were not comfortable with that. They wanted it to be brotherhood or building bonds because they didn’t quite feel okay with that word of vulnerability. That’s an active conversation and a journey that we’re exploring.
Tell us, how big is Gents Journey? You meet on Monday nights. Is it all Zoom or on the internet? Is it open to any man? Anyone reading this and they have someone, a man who’s grieving, can they send them to Steve? How does that work?
Send them over. Right now, we have a community. It started out with 5 co-founders, we’re down to 3 now because some of them had life that got in the way, but it’s myself, colleague is his name is Matt McManus, he’s a brilliant artist, writer, comedian, and then Dean Bicari, he’s a self-help guru. He really helps people optimize their life and productivity. We all have different backgrounds. We meet every Monday as the founders and then we have a monthly meeting.
We have a Substack community of 6,000 members. There are countless articles where you can read more about how to deal with grief, you can learn about how to optimize yourself. We actually have seven core pillars that we came up with. We focus on friendship, family, fun, focus, fitness, freedom, and faith. We have weekly we have a weekly newsletter called Gents Weekly that we send out. We have articles, we do live meetings, we also have some interviews that we do, and then we created a product, it’s called the Journey Deck.
The Journey Deck is available. What it is we took all of the meetings that we had experienced and we took the questions that really resonated because each meeting we come up with a question and we talk about it. We put it into a card deck so that any gent can carry this in their pocket. Instead of asking somebody at the next work meeting, somebody at the bus stop, or you’re at a networking event, I literally went to a networking event, I bring this card deck with me. You pull out the card deck and then you ask somebody to pull a card. Would you like to answer one, Irene?
Sure.
Tell me when to stop.
Okay, stop.
Okay, you got the directions. The question that landed on Irene was, “Who could use you in their corner right now?” We go deep. There’s a couple of lighter questions. There are some fun questions like, “What’s your favorite sandwich?” The idea is to create connection, to create friendship, to create a bond so that you can share who you really are. What’s the answer to your question?
The Power of Sharing Your Story
I think that I’m in the corner of all the people, our entire audience. This is what this show is about, to help people to become motivated, to heal, and pull themselves out of suffering, and know that they can change their lives in a lot of ways by changing the way they process their pain. That is a question I have for you. If someone reading takes only one step toward healing today, what would you advise that step to be?
I think at the end of the day, it’s important for us to truly share who we are and our experiences. We are all connected. That’s my personal opinion. To realize that, it allows us the connective tissue between us are the stories that we carry. When we write our own story, you have the power to write your own story. You have the power to share who you really are and to inspire others. At the end of the day, somebody somewhere else is probably going through the same thing that you’ve gone through.
I’m me, this is my experience. If you get value from it, great. If you don’t, that’s fine too. I think at the end of the day, we all need to realize that we’re all very unique, we all have a story to tell. Find a stage, find a community, find a friend, find someone because the simple act of sharing your story is going to help you within your healing journey because just by getting it out. That’s why they say you should write things down. If you have something that you want to do, you write it down. It not only gets it out of your head, but it presents it to the universe so that it can hopefully allow you to heal through that and achieve what it is that you want.
It sounds to me a lot like you’re getting guys to I mean women have this problem too about being the people-pleasing and being for everyone else in their lives, but you’re starting to get them to be nurturing themselves and taking care of themselves. It’s a form of self-love and acceptance of yourself. Without judgment.
I think it starts with us. This is an area that I struggled with and I still struggle with. You have the oxygen mask metaphor that’s way overused. The way that they put it in my little community that we spoke towards was think of it like a fountain you go and you put a coin in the fountain. Learning to love ourselves for who we truly are.
Oftentimes, the story we tell ourselves, “I’m bad, I’m not enough, I did this wrong,” but it’s all a bunch of BS because we are all here to spread love, joy, peace on this earth. We all make mistakes. The sooner that we can realize that everybody is human, we all have baggage, we all have missteps, we can change that narrative and then once you change that narrative, you can love yourself, then you can share who you are and share your stories and help others benefit from that.
You just crystallized the reason everyone should heal. They should work on healing because their story matters and not only can it change your life when you heal, it can change other people’s lives. You’re walking the planet and you’ve got an energy and if you are not struggling and suffering or angry or whatever is going on with you because you’ve healed that part of yourself, you’re helping all these you’re inspiring people around you. “I want some of what he’s doing over there.”
One thing that my youngest daughter and I talk about this in my TEDx talk, she started saying at a young age, I don’t know where she got it. I think it was my mother-in-law, but she started saying, “Love never ends.” I want everybody realize that love never ends. You may think that somebody is lost, but that’s the physical attachment, the embodiment of who they are.
Love never ends. You may think someone is lost, but that’s only the physical presence — the embodiment of who they were. You still have their memories, their experiences, and the lessons they taught you. You still have the love. Share on X
You have their memories, you have their experiences, you have the lessons that they’ve taught you. You have that love. Whatever it takes for you to remember that, it could be a tattoo like I have on my arm. It could be a moment of meditation, could be a picture, but realizing that just because somebody leaves or something is lost, that doesn’t mean that it’s gone.
Finding Joy Within: Reconnecting with the Inner Child
No, and not only that, I’ve interviewed so many mediums and believe me, our loved ones go on and they are around us and they are aware of what’s going on in our lives and they’re pulling for us, they really are and trying to help. I also want to ask you, you’re so wise, Steve, what is your to people for finding joy in life? They’re grieving, they’re miserable, all these things are happening to them. Does that exclude their ability to be happy and find joy?
Obviously, everyone deserves happiness and joy and sometimes, like I said earlier, we look for the happiness and joy outside of ourselves, which it is what it is. If there’s things that ignite you, make you feel happy and fun, maybe you like theme parks. Take yourself to a theme park. I think having going back to the GREAT acronym that I talked about, having that sense of reflection, one thing that I do and that I have for my clients is to make sure that we have a note on our phones or piece of paper that we keep track of the things that really light us up that we love and surround ourselves with those.
Also realizing that we can find this joy and happiness and love within us. One really great tool, I was an actor for quite some time out of college before I got into media and marketing. There’s a book called The Artist’s Way, you may have heard of it with Julia Cameron. One of the most profound exercises that she has was going back to your childhood.
Think about the 3 to 5 things that you wanted to be when you grew up before society told you no, before you felt that there was a story that you can’t follow your dreams. Before all of this mess started that started to put you in a box or that started to contain you or hold you down from who you are and what you truly wanted. To think about the things that you wanted to be when you grew up, write them down. For me, it was a magician, it was an actor, it was a broadcaster, it was an athlete. OJ Simpson was my role model, but I have to change that around. Now I got to change it to like Michael Strahan.
Also, a fireman because my dad was a fireman. One of the cool things I just showed you this card deck, it allows me to feel like a magician, but the magic isn’t me, it’s you and the story you share. Go back to your childhood. Think about the things or the positions or the things that you loved when you were so free, that vulnerable child where the world is your oyster and find different ways that you can introduce these positions into your life.
If you like magic, watch a little magic trick. Learn a magic trick. If you like firemen, go volunteer at the local firehouse or listen to the CB radio. I don’t know whatever it is that sparks it within. These all live within us. Sometimes we turn them off. We just have to shift focus a little bit and go a little bit deeper and sit with our thoughts, sit with our prayers, and then have those a-ha moments.
Gents Journey: If It’s Fun, It Gets Done
Steve, your journey from childhood roles to profound loss, from holding everything together to finally allowing yourself to be held, shows us that healing is not linear, and it isn’t solitary. It unfolds in community, in connection, and in the courage to share our story. I really want to thank you for this beautiful conversation that aligns so deeply with the spirit of the show because you’ve illuminated how grief can open the path to rebirth. From my heart, I wish you abundant blessings in your life with everything that you do.
Thank you so much, Irene, for sharing your story, for empowering so many lives, and for giving me the opportunity to speak to everyone. We’re only here for short amount of time, so why not have fun and connect with as many people as we can while we’re here?
We're only here for a short amount of time, so why not have fun and connect with as many people as we can while we're here? Share on X
Learn and lighten up. Basically, heal your stuff and lighten up.
If it’s fun, it gets done. That’s what I tell my daughter. Find the fun.
There you go. Thank you so much. As I like to say, to be continued. I really do believe in what you’re doing with Gents Journey. I think it’s wonderful. I think you’re helping a lot of men with that. How many men join you in a meeting?
It varies. It could be 2, 10, 20, 100. It just varies. We’re playing with the time because it’s a little tricky when you have so many people who are working, are they available on weekends? It fluctuates. At the end of the day, if we help one person, it was worth it. Our goal is to help one person, then they can help everyone else that they see. If there are any guys out there, come over to GentsJourney.co. Thank you.
Yeah, pass it forward. Thank you so much, Steve. Bye for now. To be continued.
Thank you so much.
Guest’s Links:
- The Seidel Agency
- Wolves Among Us
- Gents Journey
- No More Mr. Nice Guy
- The Untethered Soul
- The Artist’s Way
- Connect with Stephen Seidel on Instagram
- The Seidel Agency on Instagram
- Connect with Stephen Seidel on Facebook
- The Seidel Agency on Facebook
- Stephen Seidel’s YouTube channel
About Steve Seidel
Stephen Seidel is a TEDx keynote speaker, entrepreneur, and founder of the award-winning PR firm The Seidel Agency, amplifying artists and Fortune 500 changemakers.
A best-selling author, and creator of the Top 10 Apple podcast Wolves Among Us, and co-founder of men’s mental health community GentsJourney.co, he is driven by a mission to do good, give back, and make an impact by owning your narrative. Seidel is originally from Bucks County, PA, and lives in Lexington, KY as a proud #GirlDad. With a BSIE from Penn State, he remains loyal to cheesesteaks, pretzels, and his Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles.
