Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories

Everyone has a story worth telling. On Project Candor, host Jeanne Andersen sits down with entrepreneurs, veterans, educators, creatives, leaders, and everyday people to explore the moments that shaped who they became. Through thoughtful conversations and our signature Two Truths and a Lie segment, guests share authentic stories filled with unexpected turns, hard-earned lessons, humor, resilience, and hope. Learn more at ProjectCandor.com

Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories is a society podcast hosted by Jeanne Andersen, with 40 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Jeanne Andersen hosts Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories, a society show with 40 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #41

  The 42-Year Voyage with Chris Donaldson | Ship’s Log #41

  Sep 9, 202645 minS1

  “Home is where the bike is!” — Chris Donaldson Episode Summary In 1979 a 21-year-old Chris Donaldson pointed a café-racing Moto Guzzi out of Belfast—a city of checkpoints and bomb scares, where his family’s furniture shop got blown up on the regular—and aimed it at Australia. He never got there. The Iranian revolution closed his road east, and what was meant to be a four-month, 10,000-mile ride became a year and a half and more than 50,000 miles the “wrong” way: across the Sahara on a road bike never built for it, down through Africa to Cape Town, a hitched ride on a yacht race back to Europe, then Canada all the way down to Buenos Aires. Forty-two years later, Chris is climbing back onto the very same bike to finally finish the ride—this time with Parkinson’s, an old friend named Liam, and a phrase he lives by: “adventure before dementia.” He and Jeanne talk about the Aboriginal walkabout that shaped him, why an unmapped, pre-GPS world made for richer adventure, and the strangers across four decades who fed him, fixed his bike, and once filled his petrol tank for free in Iran and waved off the money. They close with Two Truths & A Lie—the Sahara, a scooter to Antarctica, and crossing Iran with a canceled visa—and with Chris’s quiet reframe of a lifetime of detours: “It wasn’t the wrong way at all.” Guest Bio Chris Donaldson is an adventurer and author from Belfast who set out in 1979 to ride his Moto Guzzi to Australia—and ended up going 50,000 miles the wrong way instead. His memoir of that trip, Going the Wrong Way, is an Amazon best-seller with more than 1,200 five-star reviews. Now in his sixties, he’s back on the same 1977 bike, finally pointing it toward Australia—because it’s always adventure before dementia. Guest Links Website: https://chrisdonaldson.world Book: Going the Wrong Way (Amazon) — https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1838012761 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisdonaldson1 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goingthewrongway.book X / Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChrisDo69411982 YouTube: Video on file: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAEPhkadGbc Guest CTA If you’d like to follow Chris’s journey or read his book Going the Wrong Way, you can find everything at https://chrisdonaldson.world. Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know. Email: info@projectcandor.com Website: https://www.projectcandor.com Social Media Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

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  Episode #40

  No Structure. No Problem, with Joanna Zhang | Ship's Log #40

  Sep 6, 202652 minS1

  “Don’t limit yourself with your past experiences. Every challenge is happening for you, not to you. Each experience carries a life lesson, once you’ve learned it, it’s served its purpose.” — Joanna Zhang Episode Summary Joanna Zhang didn’t set out to become a consultant. As a self-employed financial planner drowning in back-office work, she cycled through virtual assistant after virtual assistant and couldn’t find a model that fit — so she built one. That became The Operations Genius and what’s now recognized as the world’s first Fractional VA Service: a whole team of specialists a founder can dial up or down instead of one impossible hire. In 2024 it won a Stevie International Business Award, and in 2025 it was named Company of the Year for the Australia region. This conversation covers the practical and the personal in equal measure. Joanna explains why “nothing is perfect, but there can be a perfect team,” how she builds a business into an asset in four layers, and why the real job of a business owner is to hold the pivotal parts and let go of the rest. She and Jeanne also get into AI as a “double-sided sword,” the case for a human-plus-AI team, and Joanna’s move to build a fractional C-suite advisory board for small businesses. Then it turns unexpectedly tender: Joanna describes a three-day “soul awakening” four years ago that moved her from running a business on fear and desire to running it on love — a shift she traces to a single question from her mentor that left her in tears. The episode closes with Two Truths & A Lie, where Jeanne sniffs out the motorcycle story on the first guess (Joanna dropped the bike on her foot and never rode again) and the two of them land on Joanna’s own words: every challenge happens for you, not to you. Guest Bio Joanna Zhang is the founder of The Operations Genius and the creator of the world’s first Fractional VA Service. She started by building an operations team to rescue her own business, then opened that model up to other entrepreneurs who needed high-level support without a full-time hire. Her work has been recognized with a 2024 Stevie International Business Award and a 2025 Best in Business “Company of the Year” award for the Australia region. A global speaker, she leads with both systems and soul — helping founders scale sustainably without burning out. Guest Links Website: https://operationsgenius.net Website 2: https://entrepreneursoulmate.com All channels (Linktree): https://linktr.ee/joannazhang LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zhang-joanna Instagram: @entrepreneursoulmate — https://www.instagram.com/entrepreneursoulmate Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1Go1CPV7nc Email: operationsgenius@entrepreneursoulmate.com Guest CTA Listeners can find all of Joanna’s channels for connection in one place: http://inktr.ee/joannazhang Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know. Email: info@projectcandor.com Website: https://www.projectcandor.com Social Media Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

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  Episode #38

  Normal Was Not Being There with Jim Sabellico | Ship's Log #38

  Aug 30, 202639 minS1

  "Live in such a way that you would not be embarrassed to sell your parrot to the town gossip." EPISODE SUMMARY Jim Sabellico built businesses at a level most people only read about — seven figures, eight figures, the cars, the house, the bank account. Then one night he came home late to find his son's birthday cake already half gone. His six-year-old wasn't devastated. He wasn't even surprised. That was just normal. And that quiet, ordinary moment cracked something open. In this conversation, Jim talks honestly about the gap between external success and internal life — being on the edge of divorce, being overweight, having kids who didn't really know him, all while the business looked great from the outside. He shares what it took to stop hiding from that truth, find a mentor who showed him a different picture of possibility, and start redefining what success actually meant. Jim also shares the story behind his now-signature quote about the parrot, his daughter on the diving board, and why so many high achievers are still that little kid waiting for someone to look up and notice. Plus — Two Truths and a Lie: did Jim really learn Mandarin to expand his business in Asia? GUEST BIO Jim Sabellico is an entrepreneur, marketing expert, and host of the No Half Cakes podcast. After building multiple 7- and 8-figure businesses, he discovered that real success means building a life you won't regret — not just a business you're proud of. He now helps high achievers simplify their growth and align their business with their purpose. GUEST LINKS Website: https://nohalfcakes.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimsabellico/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jimsabellico Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jsabellico Twitter/X: https://x.com/JimSabellico YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JimSabellico TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jimsabellico Threads: https://www.threads.net/@jimsabellico Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know. Email: info@projectcandor.com Website: https://www.projectcandor.com Social Media Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

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  Episode #36

  No Ramps. Just Stairs. No Way In. | With Ken Kunken | Ship's Log 36

  Aug 24, 202647 minS1

  Guest Quote “Some men see things as they are, and say why. I dream of things that never were, and say why not.” (Originally attributed to George Bernard Shaw; frequently cited by Senator Robert Kennedy. Ken received this quote inscribed on a glass paperweight from Senator Edward Kennedy following his Senate testimony.) Episode Summary In 1970, Ken Kunken was a junior at Cornell University, studying engineering and playing lightweight football. A single tackle during a kickoff play broke his neck, leaving him paralyzed from the shoulders down. He spent the next nine months and twenty days in hospitals and rehabilitation centers. The Rusk Institute’s career guidance for someone with his level of injury: sell magazine subscriptions over the telephone. Ken couldn’t even dial a rotary phone. That pamphlet became the fuel. What happened next is one of the most quietly staggering stories you’ll hear. Ken returned to Cornell—a campus with no ramps, no curb cuts, no accessibility—being pulled up and bounced down nearly 100 steps on his first day back. He earned his engineering degree, then two master’s degrees from Cornell and Columbia, then a Juris Doctor from Hofstra Law. He mailed over 200 resumes and was rejected by everyone. He was the first quadriplegic to graduate from Cornell, the first to earn a graduate degree there, and the first to serve as an assistant district attorney on Long Island. He practiced law for more than 40 years. The DA’s office later named its annual award for outstanding prosecutors after him. Then there’s the personal side. In his fifties, more than 30 years after his injury, Ken married Anna—the woman who had originally been hired as his personal care attendant. She proposed. And it was her idea to try for children through in vitro fertilization. On January 24th, 2005, Ken watched from his wheelchair as triplets—Joey, Jimmy, and Timmy—entered the world. The Two Truths and a Lie segment lands with a twist: the story everyone assumed was the lie turned out to be the most complicated truth of all. In 2023, Ken published his memoir, “I Dream of Things That Never Were: The Ken Kunken Story.” Guest Bio Kenneth James Kunken is a Cornell-educated engineer turned attorney who practiced law in Nassau County, New York for over 40 years—as a quadriplegic, after breaking his neck in a college football game in 1970. He was the first quadriplegic to graduate from Cornell and the first to serve as an assistant district attorney on Long Island. In 2023, he published his memoir, I Dream of Things That Never Were: The Ken Kunken Story. Guest Links • Website: https://kenkunken.com/ • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61566473121422 • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ken.kunken/ • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenneth-j-kunken-b4b0a9a8/ • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdUUa2hyQF8ubUmEARY9WKA • Memoir on Amazon: https://a.co/d/1t1UWIN Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know. Email: info@projectcandor.com Website: https://www.projectcandor.com Social Media Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

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  Episode #35

  Too Soon to Abandon Ship with Jay Setchell | Ship's Log #35

  Aug 20, 202653 minS1

  “Sweat dries, blood clots, and broken bones heal. Suck it up.” — Jay Setchell Episode Summary Jay Setchell grew up on a working farm where nothing came free — up before sunrise mixing powdered milk to feed calves, sorting eggs by lantern for the candling plant, learning that time is money and a job left half-done isn’t done. That foundation of urgency and responsibility is the thread through everything that followed: the Marine Corps, a string of businesses, and a life that kept testing him. And it tested him hard. Jay has died more than once, survived more than 70 surgeries, and broken his neck at 31 in a drowning accident that left him, by every medical prediction, paralyzed for good. He walked anyway — for seventeen years on braces and a cane — before three rare spinal conditions eventually put him in a power wheelchair. Through all of it he leans on faith, family, and a refusal to quit, telling Jeanne plainly that the day he decides he can’t move is the day he stops moving. It’s mind over matter, and he means it literally. The conversation ranges from the death of small-town farm life to grief he says he’ll never fully make peace with, to the moment he teared up imagining walking again. It lands on hope: a national business going international, eight-year-old twins to raise, another book taking shape, and a note from an 88-year-old reader now planning her 95th birthday. Then the signature Two Truths & A Lie — where one of Jay’s three headlines is a whopper you won’t see coming. Guest Bio Jay Setchell is a Marine Corps veteran, author, and speaker who has turned a lifetime of extraordinary adversity into a message of resilience. After multiple near-death experiences, more than 70 surgeries, and a broken neck doctors said would leave him paralyzed forever, Jay refused to quit — and built businesses, coached others, and kept moving. His guiding truths are simple: “If it is to be, it is up to me,” and “It’s always too soon to quit.” Guest Links Website: https://neverquittrying.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JaySetchellTSWY YouTube: Search “Jay Setchell” to find his guest podcast appearances (no dedicated channel handle on file). Guest CTA Read Jay’s book and learn more about his story at neverquittrying.com . It’s ranked #1 in two categories on Amazon. Click here for Jay's book: Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know. Email: info@projectcandor.com Website: https://www.projectcandor.com Social Media Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

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