As we approach the end of our first season, we wanted to take a look back at our favorite moments of wisdom from each of our guests. Please enjoy our look back at season one.

Thanks for listening and thank you to all of our guests from our first season. We're going to take a few weeks off to plan and record season two with a bunch of  fantastic new guests, new topics, and new stories.

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Sometimes the smallest most insignificant decisions can lead to the biggest impact. After all, we make decisions all day, "Will I go for a run or sleep another 30 minutes? Do I want to make dinner or order in? Take the new job or stay put?"  But sometimes, those tiny, seemingly unimportant decisions can also shape the course of our lives. Do you take the time to reflect? Can you see the moments when the small decisions created the big change? Do you accept the moments when the world slipped off its axis and life just changed? Can we learn to recognize these small moments that had the big impact and are we able to see the lesson in the change?

Kristina Wandzilak is the founder and president of Full Circle intervention and sober-living communities, and has been a leader in the addictions industry since 1995. She is a mother, an author, a television personality, and interventionist. She is also a former addict who ended up homeless on the streets of San Francisco — willing to do anything to survive. But the game-changing decision that would alter the course of her life was at the age of 15, when she had a crush on a boy who drove a VW bus.

Sense of self can be a tricky thing. We all have an idea of who we are, and who we want to be, and that reflects many things: the world around us, our own personal histories, goals, traumas, family. It can be easy to distract from your sense of who you really are, to numb with drugs, or alcohol, or even keep your eyes glued to your phone instead of pursuing something that will make you happy. While falling into a pattern of distraction and numbing can be very easy, lifting yourself out of it can be much harder.

Today’s guest, Lisa May Bennet, always knew she was a writer. However, in college, as the idea of becoming a writer transitioned into the often scary practice of writing, she leaned on the distraction of alcohol from having to pursue her passion. Because if you never pursue your passion, you cannot fail. It wasn’t until several years later that she made the choice to put alcohol aside and rededicate herself to her writing; Lisa didn’t fit the traditional definition of an alcoholic, but this is precisely what made her journey more difficult. Her friends and family diminished her struggles, claiming she was fine and didn’t need to change at all, but Lisa knew better.