The Unknown Path

“It’s not a gaping open wound. But there’s a sensitivity when you touch it.” In this episode of The Unknown Path, Jem Fuller sits down with Stephanie James — psychotherapist, transformation coach, filmmaker, author and host of the Igniting the Spark podcast. Stephanie has spent decades working in mental health and psychotherapy. Her work also includes the film When Sparks Ignite, her books Becoming Fierce and Your Big Fat Juicy Life (and Everything After), and retreats and live events, all of which she says grew from something that ignited in her about eight years ago. Stephanie came into the world with a high baseline of happiness and a lifelong connection to spirit, yet one of the deepest lessons of her life came through pain. When her relationship with her father changed at 16, she spent the next 15 years searching for who she was and whether she was lovable. Trying to be the good girl for everyone became her way of earning a love that was no longer being shown to her. That effort only began to ease when a teacher told her to stop trying. It led her to the understanding she would now offer her younger self, which is that she was never separate from love, because she is it. Decades as a psychotherapist, along with her own experience, have taught Stephanie that healing is not something we finish. The same pain comes back around in a spiral, less raw each time, until what remains is a scar rather than an open wound. It can still feel tender when something presses on it, and those moments become an invitation to stay with what has surfaced and find the wisdom in it. Feeling all of it, rather than bypassing the hard parts on the way to feeling better, is what a big fat juicy life means to her. A full life holds sadness and anxiety alongside joy, without rejecting any part of who we are. The deepest work of her life has been finding compassion for the people who hurt her most. Loving her father and stepmother dearly and choosing not to have them in her life turned out to be two things she could hold at the same time. In time she came to see her stepmother’s actions as coming from a wounded little girl doing the best she could. She also came to understand that people are only cruel to each other when they are acting out of their own wounds. Along the way, that compassion extended to herself as well. Running through Stephanie’s story is a trust that miracles are part of everyday life, and that noticing them is something we can learn. Golden breadcrumbs, the moments of serendipity that keep leading us along our path, show up throughout her life, and one of them brought her a book that came together in under six weeks. What we focus on expands, so the more we look for these moments, the more of them we find. She brings that same choice about where to put her attention to a world that feels uncertain and out of control. For her it shows up in small acts of kindness that stay within our reach, even when we never see the di Stephanie closes the conversation with two words for every listener: expect miracles. ⸻ In this conversation we go into: — A hospital room in Austin and the three phrases her father kept repeating: “I love you. You’re precious. You’re beautiful.” — A letter that thanked her father and stepmother for their gifts and asked them not to contact her again — A teacher at Sufi school, a blue coat, and a message she couldn’t hear until she was called up to the stage — Neale Donald Walsch telling her to start her next book the following morning — A serious CPA who decided she wanted more happiness and started writing it down every night ⸻ About Stephanie James: Stephanie James is a psychotherapist, transformation coach, international speaker, filmmaker and author, and the host of the Igniting the Spark podcast. She draws on decades of clinical experience and spiritual exploration to help people work with change and build lasting resilience. Her latest book, Your Big Fat Juicy Life (and Everything After), explores how we perceive life, death and the full spectrum of human experience. 🌐 https://www.stephaniejames.world 🎙️ Podcast: https://mindbodyspirit.fm/shows/igniting-the-spark-with-stephanie-james/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephaniethespark/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thesparkwithstephaniejames 👥 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stephanie.james.543/ ⸻ About The Unknown Path: The Unknown Path is a podcast about the untold stories behind success — real conversations with extraordinary people about the parts of their journey nobody asks them about. Hosted by Jem Fuller. ⸻ Follow the show: 🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts 🌐 https://theunknownpathpodcast.com 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jemfuller 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jemfuller 🌱 More from Jem: https://jemfuller.com If something in this convers

“As miraculous as those things were, they didn’t fix anything. They were an invitation to do something and to be something.” In this episode of The Unknown Path, Jem Fuller sits down with Kellan Fluckiger — author, coach, entrepreneur and host of the Your Ultimate Life podcast and radio show in Los Angeles. Kellan has been a C-suite executive in multiple companies. He has written more than 20 books and is close to recording his 1,100th podcast episode. He spends the first two hours of every day on what he calls creating himself, and he is working towards reaching 300 million people with a message about purpose, prosperity and joy. For a long stretch of Kellan’s life, how things looked from the outside and how he lived on the inside had nothing to do with each other. He was at the top of his profession and, in his words, “too busy performing coolness” to hear anything that might have helped him. Underneath that sat a belief he carried out of childhood: that he would never be good enough, no matter what he did. He describes how that belief led him to sabotage every success he built. When Jem asks what he would tell the boy he once was, Kellan’s answer is that love is not conditional, and he comes back to that idea again and again in this conversation. Kellan has lived through experiences that most of us would struggle to explain. These include a night in 2007 that ended his addiction and a 17-day coma in 2018 that he came out of. What he found was a belief that everyone receives invitations to change, and he speaks honestly about the years he said no to every invitation to growth and made excuses instead. What made the difference was a decision to trust the call without knowing which mountain he had to climb or how hard it would be. After that came counselling for the first time in his life, and learning how to tell someone the truth and then listen. He describes his morning practice today as a commitment to being that person every day. Underneath all of this is the idea that the love we spend our lives trying to earn was never conditional to begin with. Kellan sees it in his marriage to Joy. She said “I’m in” when he had just resigned and didn’t know which country he would end up in. He asks what he could have done to deserve that kind of grace, and his answer is nothing. He sees the same idea in forgiveness, which he describes as “the act of no longer allowing events from the past to have power in the present.” This is why he treats loving yourself as a practice, something you get better at the same way you get better at anything else. This week’s conversation covers the freedom to decide who you are regardless of what has come before, the difference between an invitation and a choice, and why Kellan would rather err on the side of possibility. ⸻ In this conversation we go into: — Sitting at home with the lights out after the show was over, telling himself he could be anybody but didn’t know who he was — A remote that landed on a program called Intervention, and a show that started over when he turned the TV back on — Walking into Joy’s office straight after resigning to give her the chance to change her mind — Standing at a doorway during a 17-day coma and being asked “Are you sure?” — The client who said he would rather put his hand in a meat grinder than look in the mirror and say “I love you” ⸻ About Kellan Fluckiger: Kellan Fluckiger is a coach, author and the host of the Your Ultimate Life podcast and radio show in Los Angeles, where he talks with guests about purpose, prosperity and joy. He is a former C-suite executive in multiple companies and has written more than 20 books, including Meeting God at the Door and Forgiveness: A Journey of Courage to a Place of Freedom and Power. Through his coaching, writing and broadcasting, he is working towards reaching 300 million people. 🌐 https://www.kellanfluckiger.com 🎙️ Podcast: https://www.yourultimatelifepodcast.com 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellan.fluckiger/ ⸻ About The Unknown Path: The Unknown Path is a podcast about the untold stories behind success — real conversations with extraordinary people about the parts of their journey nobody asks them about. Hosted by Jem Fuller. ⸻ Follow the show: 🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts 🌐 https://theunknownpathpodcast.com 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jemfuller 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jemfuller 🌱 More from Jem: https://jemfuller.com If something in this conversation lands for you, share it with someone who might need it today. #TheUnknownPath #KellanFluckiger #SelfLove

“I knew that it was a mistake, but it didn’t define who I was.” In this episode of The Unknown Path, Jem Fuller sits down with Nick Slater — Australian actor, and storyteller. From a career in Australian Radio to an acting career starring in the American series Reign, Nicks known for who he is in front of the camera. With a huge social media following, that boomed when COVID paused the acting industry,Today he shares a blend of humour, education and honest commentary with an audience of more than 500,000 people. Nick has a way of saying what many of us think and don’t say out loud, and this week’s conversation goes back to the person who shaped that - His Dad. As we explore the things we learn from our parents by watching how they treat other people, and what we go on learning about them after they are gone, Nick shares beautiful stories and the lasting legacy his dad left after loosing him to a brain tumour in 2019. For Nick, it was seeing his dad offer the same respect and kindness to everyone he met, whatever their status, which has had the biggest effect on his life and the way Nick talks about grief and beauty side by side will speak to all of us.  In this episode, we hear the journey of Nicks life and the lessons that have helped to shape the person he is today. From what Nick calls the hardest time of his life, which came shortly before he lost his dad to going from Radio in Australia to a Film Set in Canda, to cheating on his long-term girlfriend. We explore the impacts of carrying shame and guilt and how uncovering their source meant freedom from years of self abandonment. He shares the advice from his brother that taught him about boundaries, and how he came to forgive himself without treating the pressure he was under as an excuse. We also talk about the irony of making a living on social media while seeing it as the biggest threat to how we treat each other, and why his answer keeps coming back to love. This week’s conversation covers what success looks like once status and profile stop being the point, the father who treated everyone the same, and why Nick believes the magic in life happens when you slow down and create space. ⸻ In this conversation we go into: — Sitting outside his manager’s studio on his motorbike, ready to skip the audition that ended up taking him to Toronto — The folder on his dad’s computer, filled with media clippings and emails Nick had sent him — Playing a song by The Middle East at his dad’s bedside, and the line that was playing when he took his last breath — His brother’s advice that “cheating begins before the cheating,” and the letter Nick eventually wrote to his ex — Staying with friends in Brisbane, and the morning their two boys ran in to give their dad a hug ⸻ About Nick Slater: Nick Slater is an Australian actor, content creator and storyteller who shares humour, education and honest commentary on modern life with an audience of more than 500,000 people. He runs his own production house, taking brand and travel stories from concept through to shoot, voice and edit, and has collaborated with brands including Qantas, Uber, Amazon and Four Seasons. He started out in audio production and radio at Nova and Triple M before landing a role on the US series Reign, and he is also the host of the Becoming podcast. 🌐 https://nickslater.au 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nick.slater/ ⸻ About The Unknown Path: The Unknown Path is a podcast about the untold stories behind success — real conversations with extraordinary people about the parts of their journey nobody asks them about. Hosted by Jem Fuller. ⸻ Follow the show: 🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts 🌐 https://theunknownpathpodcast.com 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jemfuller 🌱 More from Jem: https://jemfuller.com If something in this conversation lands for you, share it with someone who might need it today. #TheUnknownPath #NickSlater #SelfForgiveness

"The past is not something we want to ignore, there's so much wisdom there." In this episode of The Unknown Path, Jem Fuller sits down with Hilary DeCesare — founder of The ReLaunch, award-winning coach, three-time international bestselling author and host of the podcast ReLaunch to a Rich Life. Hilary spent almost ten years at Oracle in Silicon Valley before she left at the height of her career and moved into entrepreneurship. Her 3HQ™ framework brings together neuroscience, intuition and small practical steps, and she has been featured on ABC's Secret Millionaire and in Forbes and USA Today. By her own count she has been through 27 significant relaunches, and her work in 2026 is helping people build a solid foundation for their own. This week's conversation goes back to the roots. We discover where Hilary's optimism came from, and it wasn’t from an easy childhood. A child of divorce where her family moved through 11 homes, to the unspoken grief following her grandparents sudden death, Hilary never felt like she belonged with either parent and had to navigate loss of stability in her home life. But in between it all, Hilary recalls the importance of love and gratitude modelled by her mother and hope that lived within the moments of confusion that’s ultimately shaped who she is today. In this episode, we get into why Hilary tells people who think they are having a midlife crisis are actually having an identity shift, and why she believes that matters more now than at any point in history. She shares the three beliefs she calls the queen bees of our belief system, "I'm not good enough, I'm not loved, and I'm not safe," and how they sat underneath her own sense of not belonging. She takes us to the narrow twin bed at her mum's place where she lay down in the middle of a divorce, a melanoma diagnosis and businesses that were falling apart. The kismet experiences that let her to the man who would teach her neuroscience for the next 15 years that launched the depth in her work and the deepest grief of sitting with a parent as they take their last breath. This week's conversation covers what it means to build a foundation that can take the cracks, the mother who showed her daughter exactly where to stand to see the view, and why grief is powerful and how love ultimately comes down to connection. ⸻ In this conversation we go into: — Being told as a child to be happy all the time, and the facade she carried until it almost broke her — Her mum hand painting the house for two years, finishing on the day it had to be sold, and calling it her Mount Everest — Writing "I want to meet John Assaraf" on her mum's notepad, and walking into a hotel lobby six weeks to the day later — Hearing "I'm done" in the driveway at the height of her career at Oracle — Diana Ross singing "I Will Survive", and what Hilary heard in the middle of the night months after her mum died ⸻ About Hilary DeCesare: Hilary DeCesare is the founder of The ReLaunch, an award-winning coach and a three-time international bestselling author. Her 3HQ™ framework combines neuroscience, intuition and small practical steps, and she works with people, especially women in midlife, who are stepping into their next chapter. 🌐 https://www.therelaunch.com 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hilarydecesare ▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@hilarydecesare 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilarydecesare ⸻ About The Unknown Path: The Unknown Path is a podcast about the untold stories behind success — real conversations with extraordinary people about the parts of their journey nobody asks them about. Hosted by Jem Fuller. ⸻ Follow the show: 🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jemfuller 💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jemfuller 🌱 More from Jem: https://www.jemfuller.com #TheUnknownPath #HilaryDeCesare #TheReLaunch

"Reconnecting to that 14-year-old kid who has nothing figured out except that he knows what he loves." In this episode of The Unknown Path, Jem Fuller sits down with Barry Goldstein — Grammy Award-winning composer, producer, and author of The Secret Language of the Heart. As a kid in Queens he was fascinated by the way a note kept hanging in the air after it's played. That curiosity lead him to becoming a New York producer, and later composing music for some of the most recognised teachers in healing and consciousness. Across more than thirty years, Barry has been exploring what music can do for the people who listen to it. He won a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental in 2005 on a track with Les Paul. He has collaborated with Dr Joe Dispenza, Dr Daniel Amen, Dave Asprey and Neale Donald Walsch, and his work has reached millions of people around the world. Chances are you too have been touched by the incredible creative work of Barry. This week's conversation explores the untold events of Barry's story. How did he get to where he is? What was his drive? What was the promise that has shaped his whole life and then career? In this episode, we get into what happened when Barry stopped trying to compose and let himself decompose instead. He set his metronome to sixty beats per minute, the rhythm of a relaxed heart. Then he began making music no one was ever supposed to hear, as an experiment to heal himself, and those recordings led to the collaborations that followed. He talks about letting go of the starving artist story handed down from father to son, and about the moment he realised he couldn't keep serving two masters. He also describes years of inviting God into every piece he played before realising that the one who needed inviting into his music was himself and why music is just as important as the food we eat. This week's conversation covers what it means to create from healing rather than pressure, the promise that carried a fourteen-year-old through a lifetime in music, and why each of us gets to be the DJ of our own life. ⸻ In this conversation we go into: — The Gibson Les Paul his dad couldn't afford, and the promise he made outside the shop to get it — Playing the blues with Les Paul at the Iridium, gripping a borrowed guitar so his pants wouldn't fall down — Setting a metronome to sixty beats per minute and allowing himself to "decompose" instead of compose — Letting go of the starving artist belief passed down from father to son — Treating music like breakfast, lunch and dinner, and becoming the DJ of your own life ⸻ About Barry Goldstein: Barry Goldstein is a Grammy Award-winning composer, producer and sound expert whose work sits at the intersection of music and healing. His music is used in hospitals, hospices and medical practices, and he brings his Acousticeuticals™ work into corporate workshops and healthcare settings. He has collaborated with Dr Joe Dispenza, Dr Daniel Amen, Dave Asprey, Neale Donald Walsch and Les Paul, and he is the author of The Secret Language of the Heart. 🌐 https://www.barrygoldsteinmusic.com 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barrygoldsteinmusic ▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/4444oh ⸻ About The Unknown Path: The Unknown Path is a podcast about the untold stories behind success — real conversations with extraordinary people about the parts of their journey nobody asks them about. Hosted by Jem Fuller. ⸻ Follow the show: 🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts 🌐 theunknownpathpodcast.com 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jemfuller 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jemfuller 🌱 More from Jem: https://www.jemfuller.com If something in this conversation lands for you, share it with someone who might need it today. #TheUnknownPath #BarryGoldstein #SoundHealing