Full episode description
What might become possible if you stopped keeping an escape route—and devoted yourself completely to what you love?
In this intimate and poetic conversation, Michael sits down with bestselling poet and author Allie Michelle, whose work explores love, loss, creativity, lineage, and the courage to remain fully human.
Allie shares the moment she closed her businesses and committed herself entirely to writing—only to receive an unexpected book offer from HarperCollins. As she describes it: “You chose your art, and your art chose you back.”
Together, Michael and Allie explore what it means to create in an age of constant distraction; why boredom may be the birthplace of art; and how the parts of ourselves we suppress often return through the people we love. Allie reflects on walking the Camino de Santiago without her phone, becoming “Freedom Wolf,” and moving from being a writer holding a pen to becoming “a pen in life’s hand.”
They also journey through the unsent words we carry, the courage required to keep the heart open, the wisdom of lineage, and the beauty of making something no one may ever witness—from a pianist playing alone in a forest to an Indigenous flower blessing offered at sunrise.
This is a conversation about burning the boats, letting failure deepen the work, loving people beyond our projections, and singing your song even—and especially—when no one is listening.
In this episode:
- Why distraction is the death of art and boredom its birthplace
- The danger of living like a personal brand
- How to recognize the work that is truly calling you
- What Allie learned from a samurai master
- Burning the boats and abandoning your escape routes
- Why failure is a comma, not a period
- The connection between suppressed identity and romantic attraction
- Reclaiming the wild, “feral” parts of ourselves
- The practice of identifying your unsent letters
- Creating as an offering rather than a performance
- Why sensitivity can become an artist’s greatest instrument
- Honoring endings, impermanence, and the many lives we live
Allie closes the episode with a breathtaking poem imagining a life lived in reverse—a reminder to find magic in the ordinary and return to the only moment we ever truly possess:
Just here. Just now. Just this.
Featured book: Don’t Forget to Light the Candles by Allie Michelle.
Michael Trainer has spent 30 years learning from Nobel laureates, neuroscientists, and wisdom keepers worldwide. He's the author of RESONANCE: The Art and Science of Human Connection, co-creator of Global Citizen and the Global Citizen Festival, and host of the RESONANCE podcast.
Featured in Forbes, Inc, Good Morning America. Follow on YouTube
