A Fiercer Delight with Matt Gordon

Rachel Douglas: Karaoke, Canoes, and More Is More

What happens when the extrovert who lights up every room realizes her battery is empty halfway through a service trip in Jamaica? Rachel Douglas grew up floating rivers in St. James, Missouri, and now trains people at Veterans United in Columbia. She talks about being the youngest child who learned to lighten the mood, the mid-week moment in Jamaica's Harmony House when she finally let people see her vulnerable after a Meals on Heels visit left her overstimulated, and her karaoke go-tos: "Goodbye Earl" by the Dixie Chicks and Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On," fist in the air. Matt and Rachel get into why community gets harder after 22, what it means to find safe people who don't need you to be on, and her motto that's reshaped how she shows up: be what you want to attract. More is more, especially when it comes to joy. Plus: the story of a 30-year-old who snapped at Rachel's sister for humming Broadway hits at the Missouri Symphony's Defying Gravity show. Follow us today for some weekly joy.

Levi Lenon: Saving Adin, Losing Dad, and Joyful Work

What do you do when you watch a 19-year-old die in a wreck, drive away thinking you failed, and learn months later he's alive? On Halloween 2025, Levi was taking his daughter to a soccer game when he came up on a vehicle ripped in half. He pulled 19-year-old Adin Smith out before the gas could ignite. Aiden had a pulse in his arms, but by the time the ambulance loaded him, it was gone. Weeks later, after losing his own dad unexpectedly at 75, a friend showed Levi a GoFundMe page that didn't make sense. Aiden was alive, his mom had been searching for the stranger who stopped, and that stranger was Levi. Levi makes a case for being a joyful worker, someone who does the thing they hate with the same zest as the thing they love. He talks about his dad's 75 years as a movie that was always going to end where it ended, not 30 minutes short. Joy, in his telling, lives on the other side of hard things, not in their absence. Plus: the moment Adin's name lit up Levi's caller ID, and the phone call that followed. Follow us today for some weekly joy.

Sierra Michaelis: Marathons, Medals, and Finding Faith in the Quiet

What does it look like to chase joy when you're wired to compete, perform, and be the funniest person in the room? Sierra Michaelis joins Matt to talk about running marathons (with and without training), growing up on a cattle farm in Jackson, Missouri, and the relentless pull toward winning that's followed her since childhood. We get into the costumes she wore to embarrass her friend's middle schooler, the bits she commits to for an entire year ("Do you know who my daddy is?"), and why being roasted by your siblings might be the best gift a person can get. Sierra also opens up about a quieter thread running through her life: walking into a small Baptist church alone at 10 years old, drifting through college, and finally encountering grace at a Passion Conference right before COVID shut the world down. It's a conversation about humor as a gift, solitude as fuel, land as a long-awaited homecoming, and the strange grace of looking back and realizing the picture was painted before you ever picked up the brush. Plus: a closing quote on excellence that just might change how you think about work, play, and everything in between. Follow us today for some weekly joy.

Heather Cox: Memory Care, Bonus Kids, and the Windbreaker of Faith

What do you do when the wind picks up? Heather Cox joins the show in a literal windbreaker on a rainy day to talk about fighting for joy through memory care, bonus kids, and a faith that doesn't always break the wind but does something quieter and more useful. We get into how she "collects people" (her bonus daughter Sierra came over to train Hannah for basketball and never quite left, and her nephew Johnny and his wife Carly now live with them too), the Italy wedding that inspired a backyard greenhouse and a future lemon tree, and the prayer she once said about wanting another baby that turned into a story bigger than she could have written. Heather also walks listeners through this week (yes, this week) of moving her father into memory care after six or seven years of dementia, and what it looked like to pray over the room before he moved in. It's a conversation about fighting for joy on the days it doesn't come easy, the difference between the theory of faith and the lived experience of it, and why family doesn't always look the way you planned but might end up being better than you would have written. Plus: mahjong (and how to say it), protein in your morning coffee, Adirondack chairs from Walmart that somehow last eight years, and a closing line that might be the most active two-sentence philosophy in the catalog. Follow us today for some weekly joy.

Brandon Hoops: Mentors, Golf, and the Wilderness Garden

Where do you go to remember who you are? Brandon Hoops joins the show to talk about mentors, mud-built memories, and a piece of family wisdom called the wilderness garden. We get into how Brandon picked up his nickname, why he flips garage sale golf clubs for fun, what it was like to mail Wendell Berry a book and get one back signed "Professor Hoops," and the spring break ski trip that nearly ended in tears (his sons' and his own). Brandon also opens up about two men who shaped him: his grandfather "Butchy Boy," who lived to 99, and John Drage, the campus minister who took him in for seven years before cancer took him five years ago. It's a conversation about creativity as the lens that brings the world into color, mentorship as a kind of love that outlasts the grave, and why his 90-year-old grandmother's hidden patch of land, a mile from the house, might be the truest picture of joy in this episode. Plus: Cubs fans in Cardinal country, the tear-soaked truth about Go Cubs Go at Wrigley, and Steinbeck's idea that every man needs a spot. Follow us today for some weekly joy.