The present moment was once the unimaginable future.
~ Stewart Brand
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Author: Craig Constantine
Prime time
Things were quiet the morning after coaching and volunteering at the 2025 Move NYC event. Coffee. Chill morning air. Sun rising through the trees. A snapshot to remind myself that sometimes I do get the rare privilege to be able to literally address the sun with sun salutations. And although I can stare at anything while meditating, when I find moss-covered balanced stones also in the direction of the rising sun… sublime. Thanks Ruby and Jesse!
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Faith with Cassian Bellino
What happens when faith, logic, and vulnerability collide in a personal search for truth?
Cassian Bellino has turned personal doubt into a public quest for answers interviewing scholars about Christianity.
I think just, over time, you really understand that God invites these questions because He doesn’t want us to live blindly or have blind faith.
~ Cassian Bellino (36:55)
The conversation explores the origin and evolution of Cassian’s podcast, Biblically Speaking, focused on asking scholars direct, often difficult questions about Christianity. It begins with her internal conflict—wanting to live as a Christian while not fully understanding or agreeing with the faith—and follows her decision to start a podcast to resolve those doubts through dialogue. Cassian’s podcast is a place for intellectual exploration, built from personal curiosity and a desire for logical clarity rather than blind faith.
The discussion touches on content strategy, emotional challenges, and the mechanics of sustaining a solo creative endeavor. Cassian recounts her journey through building community platforms, hiring coaches, learning software systems, and dealing with burnout. Marketing, guest outreach, and pre-call preparation processes are shared in detail, alongside reflections on episodes that felt like failures but later proved meaningful to listeners. Throughout, the conversation centers on the power of asking questions and trusting intuition to guide the creative process.
Takeaways
Starting with doubt — A podcast was born from unresolved questions about faith and a desire for logical understanding.
Living authentically — The tension between personal beliefs and behavior pushed a transformation toward integrity.
Faith as inquiry — Rather than blind acceptance, the creator invites and pursues questions to deepen belief.
Community encouragement — Support from family and friends played a pivotal role in catalyzing the podcast’s launch.
No formal training — The project began without vision, planning, or marketing infrastructure, yet succeeded organically.
Scholarly access — Professors were invited via public contact information, creating opportunities for deep conversations.
Iterative development — The podcast and related projects grew through trial, error, and continuous refinement.
Strategic pivoting — Several initiatives were launched and later shut down based on response and sustainability.
Emotional cycles — Creative highs and lows are acknowledged as normal and are met with grace and reflection.
Guest preparation — Pre-calls, topic selection, and clear expectations ensure productive and respectful interviews.
Mismatch recovery — A seemingly misaligned episode later proved invaluable to a listener, showing the value of publishing anyway.
Platform building — Tools like Go High Level, automated funnels, and lead magnets were adopted through hands-on experience.
Future expansion — Plans include more complex episodes with multiple guests and potential sponsorship monetization.
Audience insights — The content resonates strongly with stay-at-home mothers and reflective older men.
Constructive doubt — A major theme is that God welcomes questions and wants people to understand their faith deeply.
Resources
bibspeak.com — The Biblically Speaking podcast’s official website, with guides and merchandise for its audience.
@thisisbiblicallyspeaking — Instagram
@thisisbiblicallyspeaking (TikTok) — TikTok
Biblically Speaking Podcast — YouTube
Go High Level — Platform used for building funnels, automating email, and managing community outreach.
intro.co — Platform used to connect with podcasting coaches and mentors.
testimonial.to — Tool for collecting and displaying user testimonials.
The Hansel and Gretel Code — Curtis Cates’s podcast mentioned by Craig that explores intuitive storytelling (particularly episode 31, The Power of Plan B.)
David Wasicki — Podcast coach mentioned by Cassian, who provided guidance on branding and emotional support.
(Written with help from Chat-GPT.)
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First judgements
[R]eject the first judgements and the objections that spring out of them because those objections are so often rooted in fear. […] This is radically different from how we’ve been taught to act. Be realistic, we’re told. Listen to feedback. Play well with others. Compromise. Well, what if the “other” party is wrong? What if conventional wisdom is too conservative? It’s this all-too-common impulse to complain, defer, and then give up that holds us back.
~ Ryan Holiday
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Root Glen
There were several days with rain during a recent visit to Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. Lots of rain makes for gorge-ous greens and roaring streams. Here, in Root Glen.
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Desperation
People are getting a little desperate. They might not show their best elements to you. You must never lower yourself to being a person you don’t like. There is no better time than now to have a moral and civic backbone. To have a moral and civic true north. This is a tremendous opportunity for you, a young person, to be heroic.
~ Henry Rollins
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A peony in bloom
My wife is a Peony hybridizer—she’s really interested in growing, and creating new, Peonies. We recently visited the spectacular (even caveman-me could see that) collection of Peonies at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. I took one—exactly one!—photo of a Peony. She took a “few” more than I did.
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Between the two
Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.
~ Steven Pressfield, from Writing Wednesdays: The Unlived Life
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For me there’s a huge tension between those two. I see so many things that I want to do—and I don’t mean binge-watch TV shows. I imagine something I’d like to write—for example, a weekly, emailed publication for paying subscribers—and the complexity of creating it overwhelms me. The writing is the easy part; Or, am I deluding myself? The only salve I’ve found is to remind myself over and over and over that I consistently overestimate what I can get done in a day, and underestimate what I can get done in a lifetime.
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2,800 weeks of progress
All original parts, some wear. As I’m starting to look for opportunities to coach in movement spaces, a headshot is a requisite.
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Self-conceit
Peole who do not know how to laugh are always pompous and self-conceited.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray
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Within, not across
Claude and I discussed it, and my theory (Claude is giving me full credit) is an LLM of this sort is not a communications medium at all. There’s no way for a human to put a new idea directly into it and no way to send that message to another human. Instead, my take is that Claude brings us everything it knows, and that its function is to help us go within, not across.
~ Seth Godin, from Across and within | Seth’s Blog
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A slightly longer than usual blog post from Godin making the interesting point differentiating across time, versus across space (just normal space, not outer space.) I know I find “talking” with LLMs very helpful for various reasons. I think the biggest is that it is (or at least “feels like”) one-on-one communication; It’s very much not social media where I always feel like I’m serving corporate masters by making grist for their mills.
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One change
There’s a pretty obvious incentive at play when companies have the ability to unilaterally alter how their products work after you buy them and you are legally prohibited to change how the product works after you buy them. This is the first lesson of the Darth Vader MBA: “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”
~ Cory Doctorow, from Pluralistic: Brother makes a demon-haunted printer
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There are many wrongs to right in the world. This one “small” legal wrinkle doesn’t seem like a big deal at first glance. And then…
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Stoic joy
In a word, Senecan joy comes from within, from a good person’s own character and conduct: it arises from goodness itself and from right actions that one performs. This means that joy will not always be a matter of smiles and laughter, for good actions may be difficult and unpleasant: one may have to accept poverty, endure pain, even die for one’s country. A good person does these things only when they are right, and only for that reason, but the doing is itself a good and a reason to rejoice.
~ Margaret Graver and A. A. Long from Letters on Ethics
I don’t understand how we got to the common definition of “stoic”—the suppression of emotions. It’s a shame, because Stoicism is literally the opposite of suppressing one’s emotions. Emotions and reason have their right place. Stoic joy.
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But does it work?
However, the amount of discomfort and whether people agree to the possibility in the first place are essential to ethical practice. I contend that sayings like ‘It has to get worse before it gets better’ often gloss over the reality that some meditations and therapies simply don’t work for everyone, while others are actively harmful. So, when is getting worse a sign that ‘the process’ is working, and when is it an indicator that the approach is unhelpful or even harmful?
~ Nicholas Van Dam, from In therapy or meditation, is it normal to feel worse at first?
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I had bookmarked this a while back after reading it. I was reminded of it as I sat in a warm patch of sun meditating this morning. For me, the sort of meditation I practice—every day, as best I can—is absolutely helpful.
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A great place to start
The spot of the “QM Flow” session that I taught with Evan the weekend past at the Move NYC event. Sometimes I just take pictures where nothing is happening… yet.
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Petty hazards
Anybody can rise to meet a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires spirit.
~ Jean Webster
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Decisions
I spend far too much time “working” inside the virtual world. When I get a chance (as I just did) to go do stuff entirely in the real-world, with scarcely a moment to check in online, I end up with piles of backlogged “work.” It’s at this point that I try to pare things down. I’d love to do zero computer work—but that’s not happening while my faculties hold out. Until then, I’ll continue to trim and optimize.
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Clear the decks
As I’m getting ready for a road trip, I’m finishing up as many things as I can. I always say I want to spend less time at my computer. That will definitely be the case for the next five days. Yes, please.
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Right. In. My. Face.
I keep a board with sticky-notes. Right at eye level, right next to my most-common workspace. What’s the simplest thing that could possibly work? In this case it’s rows for day-of-the week, and date at the top. Then I just stick notes for rocks where they need to be. (The metaphor is that of putting rocks and sand into a glass jar… put big rocks in first. Also sometimes phrased as, “Eat the toad first.”)
This really works well for me. Every time I see the board I think: Am I actually doing the right thing?
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Knowledge in
I spend a lot of time reading—frankly, as much time as I can sequester for it. I’ve read several of Seneca’s letters, randomly over the years. A while back I bought this delightful edition from Chicago Press and I’m beginning at the beginning. (There are marks in the book where I’ve already used it for referring to some of the letters.) What knowledge are you putting into your mind?
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