She Broke Her Face at 13. An Orthodontist Changed Her Life. | Dr. Sima

She Broke Her Face at 13. An Orthodontist Changed Her Life. | Dr. Sima

Dr. Sima Yakoby Epstein was 13 years old when a head-on collision broke her face. She was sitting in the middle seat with no seatbelt. When she looked in the rearview mirror, all she saw was blood. Her first instinct was to turn to her mother and ask if she was okay. Her parents were Georgian immigrants who didn’t speak the language and couldn’t navigate the medical system. They went to the local dentist because he was the only one they could afford. What followed was years of surgeries, root canals, crowns and implants. As a teenager, Sima wouldn’t smile. She had what she describes as Dracula teeth. She was embarrassed and sad. Then she met an orthodontist who looked like Santa Claus. He never commented on how she looked. What he said instead was: great things will come from you. Those five words changed the trajectory of her life. Today she is a double Penn graduate, a former Cornell surgical resident, a former NYU professor and the founder of OrthoNu. She became the person on the other side of the chair. In this conversation, Sima talks about growing up in the projects in Queens, her father’s 14-year journey from checker cab driver to fleet owner, her mother who was one semester short of becoming a doctor, losing both parents, and why she decided to stop waiting for someone else to build what patients actually needed. Executive Producer: Sara Glassman Follow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media | YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcast Follow Dr. Sima: Instagram @simayakobyepstein | Website: orthonu.com www.atthebrinkmedia.com | hello@atthebrinkmedia.com Here you go: At the Brink is a premium podcast hosted by Erica Brinker featuring raw, intimate conversations about defining moments — the question at the show's core: was there a moment when your story split into a before and after? New episodes every Wednesday. Website: www.atthebrinkmedia.com [http://www.atthebrinkmedia.com] Email: hello@atthebrinkmedia.com [hello@atthebrinkmedia.com] Instagram: @at.the.brink.media Executive producer | Sara Glassman ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

She Started from Zero in Three Countries. Then She Did It Again After Divorce. | Alexia Bertsatos

Alexia Bertsatos left Greece at 18 with almost nothing. She studied architecture and interior design in London, pivoted to real estate during the 2008 crash, moved to Arizona for graduate school and met the man she would marry. She became a stay-at-home mom and spent nine years caught between guilt about not working and guilt about not being with her kids enough. When the marriage ended, Alexia had no professional track record in the United States, two children under eight and a divorce she didn’t see coming. She had to figure out bills, careers and identity all at once. In this conversation, she talks about what starting over actually looks like when you’ve done it three times in three countries, why she chose not to be the victim of her own story and what her kids were watching the whole time. Executive Producer: Sara Glassman Follow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media | YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcast Follow Alexia: Instagram @realestate.by.alexia | Website: alexiabertsatos.com www.atthebrinkmedia.com | hello@atthebrinkmedia.com Here you go: At the Brink is a premium podcast hosted by Erica Brinker featuring raw, intimate conversations about defining moments — the question at the show's core: was there a moment when your story split into a before and after? New episodes every Wednesday. Website: www.atthebrinkmedia.com [http://www.atthebrinkmedia.com] Email: hello@atthebrinkmedia.com [hello@atthebrinkmedia.com] Instagram: @at.the.brink.media Executive producer | Sara Glassman ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Her Daughter Was 8. The Doctor Said Cancer. | Melody Orak

On an ordinary afternoon in March 2022, Melody Orak got a phone call that split her life in two. Her eight-year-old daughter Elilai had a bone tumor. What the doctors said would be 12 rounds of chemotherapy became 28. Then 33 consecutive days of radiation. Then nine months of fighting a disease that still treats children with protocols developed in 1956. In this episode, Melody sits down with Erica Brinker to talk about what it actually takes to hold everything together when your child’s life hangs in the balance: the impossible choices made for an eight-year-old, the moment she shaved her own head, the day Elilai’s body said it couldn’t take any more, and the bittersweet reality of remission three years later. Plus: the hype song that gets Elilai through middle school, why scan anxiety is real, and a toast you won’t forget. Executive producer: Sara Glassman Follow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media | YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcast www.atthebrinkmedia.com | hello@atthebrinkmedia.com Here you go: At the Brink is a premium podcast hosted by Erica Brinker featuring raw, intimate conversations about defining moments — the question at the show's core: was there a moment when your story split into a before and after? New episodes every Wednesday. Website: www.atthebrinkmedia.com [http://www.atthebrinkmedia.com] Email: hello@atthebrinkmedia.com [hello@atthebrinkmedia.com] Instagram: @at.the.brink.media Executive producer | Sara Glassman ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

She Got Sober, Got Divorced, Got Fired. Then Peloton Called. | Johanna Ricouz

Most people know Johanna Ricouz as one of the newest Pilates instructors on Peloton, the one with the tattoos, the nails, the hip hop and the mouth. What they don’t know is what it took to get there. Johanna grew up in New Jersey, trained as a classical ballet dancer at an all-Black school, started using drugs young, got married at 21, divorced at 25, got sober, worked three jobs (nightlife, modeling and teaching Pilates at $23 a class), got fired from the club, and then built a career in wellness that she never planned but couldn’t stop building. In this conversation, Johanna talks about what her ballet teacher taught her about effort and excuses, the moment she realized she could just show up and be taken care of, teaching Pilates inside a women’s prison through the nonprofit 300 Letters, how Peloton DM’d her during the darkest stretch of her infertility journey, what it means to be a stepmom to a child she met at four, and why she told both Peloton and Lululemon upfront: this is who I am and none of it is going to change. She also shares where she is in her IVF journey and the stigma around infertility in Black and brown communities, and closes with her signature toast: here’s to doing no harm and taking no shit. Follow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media | YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcast Follow Johanna: Instagram @junglejohanna | Peloton: Johanna Ricouz Executive producer: Sara Glassman www.atthebrinkmedia.com | hello@atthebrinkmedia.com Here you go: At the Brink is a premium podcast hosted by Erica Brinker featuring raw, intimate conversations about defining moments — the question at the show's core: was there a moment when your story split into a before and after? New episodes every Wednesday. Website: www.atthebrinkmedia.com [http://www.atthebrinkmedia.com] Email: hello@atthebrinkmedia.com [hello@atthebrinkmedia.com] Instagram: @at.the.brink.media Executive producer | Sara Glassman ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

His Son Was Beaten Three Times. The System Called It Bullying. | Rick Kuehner & Katey McPherson

Rick Kuehner is a Navy veteran and single father who moved to Gilbert, Arizona, because it was rated the second safest city in America. His son Tristan was a competitive swimmer, a good-looking kid with a nice car. Starting in his freshman year, Tristan was beaten at a bus stop, attacked in a school bathroom and jumped by a group of strangers in an In-N-Out parking lot. Each time, Rick reported everything. Each time, the system treated it as kids being kids. When threats followed Tristan to a second school and a group of kids showed up at their house, Rick made the hardest decision of his life: he sent his son to Europe to live with his mother, because it was the only place he felt safe. What Rick didn’t know was that the group targeting his son was part of a loosely connected network of 40 to 90 teenagers across 16 schools in the East Valley. They called themselves the Gilbert Goons. They recorded their beatings, uploaded them to a Snapchat channel called Pound Town, and operated with near-total impunity. In October 2023, they beat a boy named Preston Lord and left him to die in the street. Katey McPherson is a former school administrator turned youth advocate who had been tracking the violence before most people knew the name. Together with Rick and hundreds of other parents, she helped organize the Upstanders, a community group that crowdsourced evidence, pressured local government and ultimately helped pass Preston’s Law, an Arizona statute that created a new felony category for swarming attacks. In this conversation, Rick and Katey talk about what the system looks like from the inside when it fails, what it took to make a community listen and what Rick’s family is still living with today. Follow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media | YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcast www.atthebrinkmedia.com | hello@atthebrinkmedia.com Here you go: At the Brink is a premium podcast hosted by Erica Brinker featuring raw, intimate conversations about defining moments — the question at the show's core: was there a moment when your story split into a before and after? New episodes every Wednesday. Website: www.atthebrinkmedia.com [http://www.atthebrinkmedia.com] Email: hello@atthebrinkmedia.com [hello@atthebrinkmedia.com] Instagram: @at.the.brink.media Executive producer | Sara Glassman ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.