Sometimes the podcast about growth gets tired.

Keith and Gerren close out a three-part personal arc — the one where they turn the lens on themselves. This week is the quieter one. Not a framework episode. A real one.

Keith gets into the shame loop of teaching emotional awareness and still losing his patience by bedtime, the parenting exhaustion nobody teaches you about, and the moment on the pre-call last week when he realized he wasn't ready to talk about his own recent layoff — and now, this week, he is. Gerren gets into the loneliness that comes with cutting out relationships that felt good but weren't feeding growth. Both hosts land in the same place — the growth path can be an isolating one, and even the people making the podcast get tired.

"We can't always make a nice sound bite of a messy life." — Gerren, this episode.

Neither of them wrapped it up. That's part of the point. Try it again tomorrow.

Key Topics: The shame loop of teaching what you can't always practice, cognitive fatigue and emotional regulation, on being laid off, the loneliness of the growth path, choice-based social ecosystems, permission to not be growing all the time.

Find Us: 🌐 https://www.moreincommonent.com 📸 https://www.instagram.com/moreincommonent 🐦 https://twitter.com/MoreInCommonent 📘 https://www.facebook.com/moreincommonpod

Gerren Taylor: 🎵 https://www.tiktok.com/@gerrent 💼 https://linkedin.com/in/gerrenT

Thinking out loud about what gets in the way of connection.

Like what you heard? Leave us a comment in your podcast app. See you next week.

What are you protecting?

Picking up right where last week left off, Gerren asks Keith the question that ends up defining this episode — and the answer goes deeper than either of them expected. Keith traces it back to growing up an only child, learning to be everyone's safety net instead of needing one himself, and a moment with a corporate cohort where someone finally invited him to share and he said no anyway.

They get into the "inner circle" — who actually gets to see all of you, and why most of us keep that list shorter than we'd admit. Keith reflects on how close he came to the manosphere at 20, back when loneliness had an easy answer and he didn't have the tools to resist it. Gerren shares his own story about a man, an unwanted comment, and the instinct to just shut the door rather than get curious. And they land, for now, on a simple but hard-won idea: you know better, you do better — even though the gap never fully closes.

To be continued next week.

Key Topics: Why Keith learned individualism early, the difference between facilitating other people's vulnerability and practicing your own, the inner circle and who's allowed in it, the emotional pull of the manosphere, social norms we never actually agreed to, and the honest admission that growth doesn't mean the gap disappears.

Find Us: 🌐 https://www.moreincommonent.com 📸 https://www.instagram.com/moreincommonent 🐦 https://twitter.com/MoreInCommonent 📘 https://www.facebook.com/moreincommonpod

Thinking out loud about what gets in the way of connection.

Like what you heard? Leave us a comment in your podcast app. See you next week.

Do we actually practice what we preach?

This week Keith and Gerren turn the lens on themselves. Is the person on the show the same person they are in everyday life? Gerren's nephew recently told him "sometimes uncle, you're a real asshole" — and Gerren agreed. Keith talks about a poker buddy who asked about the podcast and how he immediately changed the subject rather than open up.

They get into social concentric circles, honesty in a new relationship, the fear of being upfront anyway, and the honest admission that neither of them always lives up to what they ask listeners to do.

To be continued next week.

Key Topics: The show-self vs. real-life-self question, directness from live TV experience, honesty and vulnerability in new relationships, social concentric circles, and why bringing the show's openness into everyday spaces is harder than it sounds.

Find Us: 🌐 https://www.moreincommonent.com 📸 https://www.instagram.com/moreincommonent 🐦 https://twitter.com/MoreInCommonent 📘 https://www.facebook.com/moreincommonpod

Gerren Taylor: 🎵 https://www.tiktok.com/@gerrent 💼 https://linkedin.com/in/gerrenT

Thinking out loud about what gets in the way of connection.

Like what you heard? Leave us a comment in your podcast app. See you next week.