Michael’s Story

Michael Sanders tells his life pivot story, with Brian in the host’s chair this time. By 39, Michael had everything his 14-year-old self could have wanted: a digital agency he co-founded, a custom-built dream house in Austin, a band that played South by Southwest. Twice, he got the thing he wanted and it felt like it was going to kill him.

Then, walking home from a show during South by Southwest in 2017, he was robbed and shot a few houses from his front door. A few months later he turned 40 and felt none of the usual dread. What came instead was clarity, and the start of a pivot that took him out of the agency he started, through burnout and PTSD, and eventually to a small town in West Michigan.

In this episode

• Why aging is “a luxury that not everyone can afford”
• The anxiety and PTSD that crept in two years later, and why psychedelic therapy moved the needle when talk therapy stopped
• Leaving Austin for Saugatuck, and signing up for yoga teacher training a week after the move: a more productive midlife crisis
• “Thrashing”: the internal, messy middle that the people around you may never see
• All things must pass, and why your dreams are never as good as you imagine, and your nightmares never as bad
• Why Michael doesn’t believe things happen for a reason, and his advice for anyone in the middle of a pivot: the answers are already within you

Chapters

• 00:00 Intro: Brian takes the host’s chair
• 02:11 Seven weeks into fatherhood
• 02:53 The agency and the Austin dream house
• 05:37 Getting what you want, twice
• 08:14 The psychic and his grandfather’s dog tags
• 09:57 What getting shot changed
• 11:57 Turning 40: “aging is a luxury”
• 13:18 Burnout, and leaving the agency he started
• 16:46 Pivots unfold over years
• 17:43 Talk therapy, then psychedelic therapy
• 22:48 Yoga, and the move to Saugatuck
• 26:58 A more productive midlife crisis
• 31:51 The universe’s sense of humor
• 35:35 All things must pass
• 38:54 Three things that helped
• 41:41 What “thrashing” looks like
• 46:31 Who Michael is now
• 54:33 Dreams vs. reality
• 58:03 Do things happen for a reason?
• 1:00:44 Advice to his past self
• 1:03:44 Advice for anyone in the middle of a pivot
• 1:05:03 Why we’re building Between Here + There
• 1:08:31 What’s next