🎙 My Rhythm
Season 24: Lost & Found | Guest: Jo Kelly
What if the person you've been searching for has been with you all along?
For Jo Kelly, rediscovering herself didn't happen in a quiet moment of reflection. It happened in a hospital hallway, with music in her ears, her body moving, and a cancer treatment waiting on the other side of the door.
After separating from her husband, navigating life as a mother of two, and caring for a daughter with significant medical needs, Jo received another unexpected challenge: a breast cancer diagnosis.
There was fear. There was anger. There was grief.
And, unexpectedly, there was dancing.
During radiation treatments, Jo began noticing something extraordinary about the joy she experienced when she allowed herself to move freely. What started in her own home eventually followed her into the streets, grocery stores, and hospital corridors, inspiring a documentary and a deeper exploration of what it means to feel fully alive.
But this conversation goes far beyond dancing.
Season 24 of Other People's Shoes, Lost & Found, explores the things we lose along life's journey and what we discover when we begin looking beyond those losses.
Jo believes many of us have lost something without even realizing it: our natural instincts, creativity, emotional freedom, and permission to be ourselves.
So how do we rediscover the person we were before the world told us who we should become?
And what happens when we finally stop worrying about staying inside the lines?
Maybe finding your rhythm isn't about learning a new dance.
Maybe it's about remembering how to move.
🧭 GUEST INTRODUCTION
Jo Kelly is a creative freedom practitioner and the founder of To Be or Not to Act, where she works with professional artists, creative leaders, and others who want to reconnect with their natural instincts and creativity.
Her work centers on an intriguing idea: What if personal growth isn't always about learning something new, but about unlearning the expectations and conditioning that have kept us from experiencing who we already are?
Jo's own life reflects that willingness to explore.
Having lived in multiple countries, she recently moved from Los Angeles to Portugal with her two children and just two suitcases, leaving most of her possessions behind.
But some of her most profound discoveries came during a much more difficult transition.
Following a breast cancer diagnosis, Jo underwent surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Through that experience, she began embracing movement and dance as a way of reconnecting with her body, experiencing joy, and sharing moments of unexpected connection with strangers.
That journey inspired her documentary project, Why Isn't Everyone Dancing?
Today, Jo invites others to reconsider the relationship between creativity, childhood, education, emotional expression, and the freedom to live authentically.
And she isn't afraid to challenge the systems and assumptions many of us have accepted our entire lives.
🧭 EPISODE DETAILS
In "My Rhythm," Neil and Jo explore:
👡 A life that fits into two suitcases: Jo explains why moving from Los Angeles to Portugal with her children and leaving possessions behind felt freeing. What happens when we stop defining ourselves by everything we own?
💔 When life delivers another unexpected challenge: Jo shares the emotional weight of receiving a breast cancer diagnosis while already navigating separation, motherhood, and her daughter's ongoing medical needs.
💃 Dancing through the unexpected: How Jo's experience during chemotherapy and radiation led her to recognize the joy she felt through movement—and why she began dancing in public, even on her way into treatment.
🎬 Why Isn't Everyone Dancing? What began as 30 days of dancing became a documentary project exploring our relationship with our bodies, emotions, freedom, and human connection.
🎨 The little boy and the box of crayons: Neil shares a memory of a young boy who didn't want to color because he couldn't stay inside the lines. How early do we begin believing there's only one acceptable way to create?
🧠 Are we losing ourselves to conditioning? Jo challenges the expectations established by parents, schools, culture, and society. Are we helping children discover who they are, or teaching them to become who we expect?
👨👧 Your job is not your identity: Neil reflects on a conversation with his father that challenged how he viewed his work, creativity, and purpose. What happens when we separate who we are from what we do for a living?
🏫 A different approach to education: Jo shares her family's experiences with child-led learning and her belief that curiosity, instinct, and self-directed discovery deserve more room in childhood.
💰 The gift economy meets everyday reality: Jo explains her pay-what-you-can approach to her work, while Neil raises practical questions about employment, bills, and supporting a family. Can we create a dif...