The Write Brain

In this episode of The Write Brain podcast, we sit down with Stephen Astephen, founder of The Familie, a sports and music management agency, to talk about right brain entrepreneurship, dyslexia, insecurity, and vision.
Steve shares his story — struggling in school, growing up with instability, never graduating high school, and being labeled “bad at academics” — and how those same traits became the foundation for building multiple groundbreaking businesses.
This conversation explores:
Why so many entrepreneurs are right-brain dominant
Dyslexia, attention issues, and struggling in traditional school systems
How insecurity and anxiety can become fuel instead of failure
Seeing a vision before it exists — and building it anyway
Manifestation as identity, not wishful thinking
Leadership, empathy, and managing creatives, athletes, and artists
Mental health, depression, and the emotional weight of responsibility
Steve opens up about building the first snowboard shop of its kind, becoming the first agent in action sports, helping build one of the largest sports agencies in the world, and why he ultimately chose to relaunch The Family on his own terms.
This is a raw, honest conversation about work ethic, vision, failure, mental health, and what it really means to be right-brain wired in a world built for left-brain systems.
If you’ve ever felt like you didn’t fit in school, didn’t think the traditional path was for you, or knew you were meant to build something different — this episode is for you.

In this first episode of the year, we’re talking about manifestation, identity, and the right brain way of creating a life.
We dive into why so many creatives, entrepreneurs, and big-picture thinkers struggled in traditional school systems — and how those same traits often become their greatest strengths later on. From dyslexia and daydreaming to questioning authority and creating something out of nothing, this conversation reframes what “success” actually looks like.
We talk about:
Why entrepreneurs are often deeply right-brain dominant
The difference between hoping for the future and seeing it already happened
Identity, backward visualization, and the law of assumption
How fear, anxiety, and overthinking block creativity — and how certainty changes everything
Why kids (and adults) who feel “different” are often wired for something bigger
This episode is part science, part lived experience, and part real-life conversation — including stories about music, performance anxiety, creativity, parenting, and what it means to trust the way your brain works.
If you’ve ever felt like you didn’t fit the mold, struggled in school, or knew you were meant to create something that didn’t exist yet — this one’s for you.

This week on The Write Brain, we sit down with for a real, unfiltered conversation about creativity, childhood, and what it means to be honest in your work.
We talk about growing up, school, family dynamics, and the early signs of feeling different — long before there was language for it. The conversation naturally moves into creativity as a place of refuge, songwriting as truth-telling, and the complicated relationship between vulnerability, shame, and connection.
we open up about the creative process, the emotional cost of honesty, and how writing songs has changed over time — especially in environments where collaboration, expectations, and success can blur the original reason you started.
This isn’t a how-to or a highlight reel. It’s a conversation about being human, staying present with discomfort, and letting the work say what you can’t always explain.
Toward the end, we ask a question we always come back to on The Write Brain: what would you say to your younger self — or to a younger creative who’s struggling in the same ways you once did?
Thanks for being here.

In this episode of The Write Brain podcast, we sit down with Dallas Alexander — world-record-holding sniper, country music artist, and devoted father.
Dallas opens up about his military career, losing his brother to cancer, and the unexpected healing he experienced through music and psilocybin. We explore PTSD, grief, right-brain healing, parenting in a digital age, and how creativity can help us process life’s hardest moments.
This is a raw, honest conversation about masculinity, emotional intelligence, and finding peace after trauma.
🎧 Topics include:
    •    Life in special operations
    •    Losing a sibling and processing grief
    •    Psilocybin and right-brain healing
    •    Music as therapy
    •    Fatherhood, freedom, and raising resilient kids
    •    Creativity, boredom, and imagination

This might be one of the most vulnerable episodes we’ve ever done.
Today on The Write Brain podcast, we sit down with actor Johnathon Schaech to talk about dyslexia, shame, Hollywood, sexual abuse, addiction, and what real healing has looked like for him.
Johnathon opens up about growing up as a creative, right-brained kid in Baltimore, excelling in art, dance, and sports while secretly struggling in school. He shares how he went from drawing and “breaking” to booking a Franco Zeffirelli film in his early 20s… and then reveals what really happened behind the scenes during that movie — including the night Zeffirelli came into his room.
For years, Johnathon didn’t have language for what happened to him. It wasn’t until the Me Too movement — and reading Rose McGowan’s story — that he realized he was a survivor of the same thing. He talks about how that one minute of his life shaped decades of shame, self-destruction, substance abuse, and sabotaged opportunities… and how EMDR, brain-based work, and 12-step recovery helped him finally get free.
⚠️ Content note: This episode includes discussion of sexual abuse, trauma, addiction, and self-destructive behavior. Please take care of yourself while listening.
In this episode, we talk about:
Johnathon’s childhood as a creative right-brain kid
Dyslexia, remedial classes & the shame of “feeling stupid”
Creating games, drawing, dancing, and discovering acting
The wild path from Baltimore to Wilhelmina Models to LA
Landing a Franco Zeffirelli film — and the casting story behind it
The night Zeffirelli came into his room and how it changed everything
Dissociation, the freeze response, and how trauma lives in the brain
How shame drove addiction, bar fights, and self-sabotage in Hollywood
Losing a huge role opposite Meryl Streep because of drinking
Getting sober, finding AA, and learning he’s not “broken,” he’s an addict
EMDR, brain-spotting & making the unconscious conscious
How healing trauma changed his acting, relationships, and self-worth
Finally working shame-free on his TV series Blue Ridge
Advice to survivors: it wasn’t your fault, and you’re not alone