🎙 Paradigm
Season 24: Lost & Found | Guest: Tori DaCosta
What if the biggest thing standing between you and a different future isn't your circumstances but the way you've learned to see them?
We all have a way of looking at life. A collection of beliefs, experiences, assumptions, and expectations that shape how we interpret the world around us.
But what happens when that perspective no longer serves us?
Sometimes finding a new direction doesn't require changing our circumstances. It requires changing the lens through which we see them.
Season 24 of Other People’s Shoes, Lost & Found, explores what happens when people lose something deeper than possessions—identity, purpose, hope, direction, faith, or the life they thought they would have and what they discover as they find a new way forward.
This week, Neil welcomes author Tori DaCosta, whose thought-provoking book, No Name Bastard: How Our Lives Teach Us What We Can Control, Manage, and Influence, challenges us to reconsider the power we give our past and the responsibility we have for our future.
Together, they explore the possibility of a paradigm shift a fundamental change in how we understand ourselves, our experiences, and the choices still available to us.
Because maybe the story doesn't need to change.
Maybe the way we see it does.
Welcome to “Paradigm.”
🧭 GUEST INTRODUCTION
Tori DaCosta is an author, business leader, coach, and speaker passionate about helping people take ownership of their lives.
Her debut book, No Name Bastard, combines personal experiences with practical lessons about what we can control, what we must manage, and what we can influence.
Rather than allowing life's most difficult chapters to become permanent definitions of who we are, Tori encourages readers to discover what those experiences can teach them.
Her work offers a powerful reminder that although we cannot rewrite yesterday, we can reconsider the meaning we give it—and how we move forward.
🧭 EPISODE DETAILS
In “Paradigm,” Neil and Tori explore:
• 🧠 The Paradigm Shift: What happens when we challenge the beliefs and assumptions shaping our lives
• 🔄 A Different Lens: How changing our perspective can change our relationship with the past
• 📖 No Name Bastard: The meaning and message behind Tori's provocative book
• 🎯 Control, Manage, Influence: Understanding the difference between what is ours to change and what isn't
• 🪞 The Stories We Tell Ourselves: How experiences and labels can influence our identity
• 👣 Personal Ownership: Why taking responsibility for our next steps doesn't mean taking blame for everything that happened
• 🌱 Lessons From Life: Discovering opportunities for growth within difficult experiences
• 🧭 Finding a New Direction: Recognizing that moving forward may begin with seeing things differently
And underneath the entire conversation is a question that sits at the heart of Lost & Found:
What if what you've been searching for isn't a different life but a different way of seeing the life you already have?
🧭 MEMORABLE TAKEAWAY
You cannot always change what happened. But you can change how you understand it.
A paradigm shift doesn't erase the past, excuse the pain, or pretend difficult experiences never happened.
It invites us to examine what we've believed, question what we've accepted, and recognize the choices still within our reach.
Sometimes we spend so much energy trying to control things that were never ours to control that we overlook the one thing we can begin changing: our response.
Same story.
Different perspective.
A new way forward.
🧭 CONNECT WITH TORI DACOSTA
🌐 Tori DaCosta Journey Stone (https://journeystone.com/)
📖 No Name Bastard Official Book Website (https://nonamebastard.com/)
Learn more about Tori, her speaking and coaching work, and her book No Name Bastard: How Our Lives Teach Us What We Can Control, Manage, and Influence.
Thank you, Tori, for bringing a different perspective into the Shoe Shack and challenging us to examine the beliefs that shape the way we walk through life.
🧭 LISTEN & FOLLOW OTHER PEOPLE’S SHOES
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🧭 LEAVE US A REVIEW
Has “Paradigm” challenged the way you see your past, your circumstances, or something you've been trying to control?
We'd love to hear how this conversation changed your perspective.
👣 Leave Your Footprint Write a Review (https://www.opspodcast.com/reviews/new/)
Your words help others discover these conversations and take their own steps toward understanding.
Thank you for walking in Other People's Shoes. 👟🩵
Sometimes finding your way forward begins with seeing where you are differently.