Send us a text WELCOME TO SEASON 6!!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!!?? Dr. Robert Smith is an esteemed physician and thought leader, haunted by decisions he made in practicing medicine, so much so that now in retirement he is on a mission, a quest really, to revolutionize how physicians treat mental health. He has a riveting story of how an experience forever changed him. Dr. Smith's new book, Has Medicine Lost Its Mind? Why Our Mental Health System is Failing Us and What Should Be Done to Cure  ...

Send us a text SEASON 5 FINALE: (Wow!) Don't worry Season 6 begins first week of January! Teresa Baglietto, is a 4-time cancer survivor who also endured 3 strokes and 1 brain aneurysm along the way. She’s now in remission and she speaks around the U.S. about resilience, mindset, and the simple framework she still uses to get through hard things: Set your mindset, make a plan, ask for help, keep laughter and joy close. Despite all that she has been through, She’s an optimist at heart, with a p...

Send us a text After surviving two life-threatening illnesses, one he was told was terminal, Tom LeNoble was given six months to live on three separate occasions. Tom lives by the phrase: “I’m Still Here.” Whether on his podcast, or in his bestselling book, he shares his potent message with the world. The book is wonderfully titled: My Life in Business Suits, Hospital Gowns and High Heels. Book: https://a.co/d/2vC4ug8 This is such an amazing, engaging, compelling episode full of highs a...

Send us a text Dr Martina Zangger's story is one of extraordinary resilience and recovery after childhood sexual abuse, and her message, that shame must be taken from the victim and placed on the perpetrator. Abused at just four years old in Switzerland by her grandfather, a respected judge, and her uncle, a well-known politician, Martina grew up shrouded in silence. Moving to Australia at 12 years old, In her search for healing, Martina fell in love with an Indian guru at 18 years old, and w...

Send us a text Sometimes you lose everything, career, marriage, even your sense of self, and there’s no easy way out. That’s exactly what happened to Joshua Tomeoni. Instead of bouncing back, he had to learn how to build a life from scratch, facing every uncomfortable truth along the way. Josh's new book, 'The Gospel of an Ex-Derelict: Fight. Fail. Rebuild' is out In January 2026. His story isn’t just about surviving, it's about rebuilding against the odds! He went bankrupt, lost his family, ...

Send us a text Hi it's me Luke Colson, your host. We are looking for guests to come on our show. If you have experienced something that changed your life, we want to hear from you. Surviving life changing events is what we are all about and we want to talk about the journey through these events and experiences in the hope that we can help others! wtfmupodcast@gmail.com Meanwhile here is an update from me in this episode as we near the end of Season 5, where we have made it into the top 2% of ...

Send us a text This week we re-visit an amazing episode with Sarah Martin, who received a text in the middle of the night from a stranger, saying that her 21 year old Daughter, Alice, who was traveling on the other side of the world, was in trouble. Alice was last seen in Turkey, while Sarah and the rest of the family, live in Australia. This episode is a rollercoaster, as Sarah begins a race to rescue Alice from what appeared to be a psychotic break, in a city thousands of miles away. Sarah ...

Send us a text What if one of the most devastating, life-altering experiences isn’t visible from the outside but silently shatters someone’s identity, relationships, and sense of control? As a Harvard-trained fertility specialist, Gabriela Rosa, has spent over 20 years working with individuals and couples whose lives were flipped upside down by the heartbreak of not being able to conceive. She’s walked beside thousands through the silent trauma of repeated loss, the mental health fallout of f...

Send us a text Shigeko Ito, is an educator, mental health advocate, and author of THE POND BEYOND THE FOREST: Reflections on Childhood Trauma & Motherhood. She grew up in Japan and immigrated to America in her twenties to pursue higher education, earning a PhD in Education from Stanford University. Drawing on cross-cultural experiences and academic expertise, she explores themes of trauma, resilience, and healing, with a particular focus on childhood emotional neglect, and severe an...

Send us a text Severn Lang is a talented, driven director from Urbandale, Iowa. Growing up in a small town in the Midwest, life was a constant struggle for him. At a young age, Severn's brother passed away and he was diagnosed with extreme dyslexia with other life changing events, making school much harder for him than his peers. Severn, he turned to other, more creative outlets to learn, grow and find his voice. Severn preferred hands on learning to the classroom, and was able to find solace...

Send us a text This week we are thrilled to chat to Gil Merrick, author of the powerful memoir Haunted Victory: Healing From Childhood Sexual Abuse and the Decades of Addiction That Followed. His story is raw, deeply personal, and ultimately one of resilience and redemption. In Haunted Victory, Gil recounts his experience as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and how that trauma fueled a decades-long battle with addiction. His memoir isn’t just about pain, it's also about healing. With stri...

Send us a text CONTENT WARNING, GRAPHIC CONTENT, VIOLENCE, SEXUAL VIOLENCE, MURDER, TORTURE, SEXUAL ABUSE, CHILD ABDUCTION: YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED PLEASE OBSERVE: When Shasta Groene was eight years old, she and her 9-year-old brother Dylan were abducted from their Idaho home by serial killer, Joseph Edward Duncan. After a forty-eight-day ordeal, she was rescued, her brother wasn’t. Surviving those weeks in the woods was only the beginning of her harrowing journey. In the following years she str...

Send us a text Gina Horan, is a terminal lung cancer survivor and author of The Dead Girl’s Guide to Terminal Cancer, Gina joins us to share her story and an uncensored survivor’s perspective on cancer, immunotherapy, and why the modern medical system is failing itself and its patients. In 2019, Gina was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and given just 72 hours to live after a year of declining health and mistreatment by some medical professionals. Nearly six years later, she is cance...

Send us a text In this episode, we meet Ian Fee, and discuss his story from alcoholism to sobriety! After losing everything due to over-drinking from a very young age, Ian reached a breaking point and began his journey to reclaim his life. Today, Ian is a successful author and entrepreneur. Proudly sober since 2017, he has dedicated himself to personal growth, family, and living a life of purpose and clarity. His journey from addiction to empowerment has become his mission: to help others tra...

Send us a text Dr Kate Lund is a psychologist, TEDx speaker, and podcast host of The Optimized Mind, and she spends her days helping people turn those "what now?" Moments into genuine resilience.. Her work centers on translating over 20 years of research into simple, science-backed habits that real humans can use during in their hardest of times, whether they're navigating parenthood, setbacks, or that feeling of life falling apart. Dr Kate talks about her early childhood with hydrocephalus, ...

Send us a text WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC AND GORY DESCRIPTIONS OF HARROWING MOMENTS. Jay Setchell has been dead 3 times. In 1969 in the Marines, in 1973 by a DUI driver, and then a third time in 1981, a swimming pool incident, involving drowning, multiple broken vertebrae in neck, and paralyzed from shoulders down.This really is an insane episode and not for the faint hearted, but Jay is HERE to tell his ongoing story! Beyond this, Jay was close to dying from blood borne MRSA staph infection in 2...

Send us a text This is an episode like nothing we have ever experienced before. Here at WTFMU, we like to show the journey through the darkness, and how we have navigated through our traumas and experiences. Yousef's story, was focusing on his burnout from relationships and business, and how he started to turn a corner. It quickly transpired that Yousef is using AI to turn his hopes, dreams, fortunes and entire life around! Yousef hit a brutal wall, a devastating breakup, total burnout, and f...

Send us a text Join us this week for the amazing and extraordinary episode with Jenny Brandemuehl, who lost her husband in a plane crash just a few years ago. Jenny takes us back to the fateful day, the phone call, the initial hope that her husband, Mark, had survived although badly burned, and the ultimate and tragic ending a few weeks after the crash. The worst day of Jenny's life, as it transpired, became the beginning of the rest of her life. As she grieved and found support, she built st...

Send us a text Calix Lewis Reneau is the author of Dancing with the Black Dog: A Survivor’s Guide to Depression, a book that’s equal parts survival manual and storytelling companion for anyone navigating depression. As a long term sufferer of depression, Calix has been through the darkest of times on many occasions, and joins us this week to talk about his depression in a way that’s real, not clinical. Storytelling is Calix’s background, he works in Hollywood as a writer/producer, which has h...

Send us a text Victoria Lenormand has a personal story that fits the heart of our show. She spent nearly 30 years as a police detective and public servant—work that left her carrying years of unprocessed trauma. Things really hit a breaking point when the very systems she’d worked to uphold began failing her own family, especially as she tried to support her neurodivergent child. That was the moment everything shifted. She walked away from the career that had shaped her identity and started a...