A brand new interview show
But what did it mean?
Everybody has a version of their story they've learned to tell. Tell it enough times and it gets smoother. Underneath the story are the people, beliefs, relationships, disappointments and choices that shaped who we became.
Underneath the Story goes there. Not to uncover secrets. To understand meaning.
Every episode
Story
Underneath
Notice
Choice
One guest. One conversation. About 45 minutes.
The show
The moment they've been asked about a hundred times. The thing they're known for. And then the questions nobody has gotten around to asking:
There are no gotchas and no attempt to manufacture vulnerability. Just curiosity. And occasionally, when I hear a thread running underneath the conversation, I'll ask:
"Can I tell you something I'm noticing?"
Sometimes I'm right. Sometimes I'm not. Either way, that's usually where the interesting conversation begins.
How an episode moves
What happened?
We begin with the story people already know, or think they know. The career. The book. The win. The loss.
What did it mean?
We explore the people, experiences, beliefs, and moments that gave the story its meaning.
What's the pattern?
I listen for the thread connecting the stories. Not a diagnosis. Not therapy. An observation.
What's shaping you now?
Every conversation eventually turns forward. Understanding our story matters most when it changes how we live the next part of it.
Why it works
This one shows who they became.
The guest might be a bestselling author, athlete, artist, CEO, pastor, psychologist, or someone you've never heard of with a story you'll never forget.
Fame isn't the qualification. A life worth getting curious about is.
Remarkable means worth making a remark about. This show is built to be talked about at dinner, sent to a friend, and argued with on the drive to work.
And we don't stop with what shaped someone. We ask what they're choosing now. Because we don't get to choose everything that shaped us, but we do get a say in what shapes us next.
Listener mail
"Me too."
The two most powerful words in the English language. Every listener story ends up here: somebody realizing they aren't the only one.
The listener
Listeners answer a question from the conversation and send us their own stories. Someone sitting in a corner office. Someone sitting in the school pickup line. Someone driving home from a job they aren't sure they want anymore.
For a few minutes, the person whose name everyone knows and the person driving to work are in exactly the same category: human.
Nobody fixes anybody. Me too.
Why Jason
In therapy rooms, boardrooms, interventions, correctional settings, marriages, and conversations with high performers, I've learned that knowing what happened rarely tells us everything we need to know.
Meaning matters. Patterns matter. What we choose next matters.
I'm a therapist, but this isn't therapy. Nobody gets diagnosed. Nobody gets fixed. My job is simpler: listen closely enough to ask the question that opens another door.
2
Bestselling books with Zondervan
250k+
Audience built on real conversation
TEDx
Speaker
PATHS
Communication Model creator
But credentials aren't the show. Curiosity is.
The guests
Love does. And so do the stories underneath it.
The Queen of Fun on what fun was protecting.
The soundtrack of ambition, and what it was covering up.
Bestselling authors, faith leaders, psychologists, athletes, entrepreneurs and artists whose public stories people already know. And every few weeks, someone you've never heard of. Those might become the episodes you remember most.
"Are they famous enough?"
"Is there something about this person's life worth going underneath?"
Why guests say yes
Guests decide which parts of their story are theirs to share. We're not looking for confession or disclosure for disclosure's sake. We're interested in something much more human: what did your life teach you?
The goal is to give people the opportunity to be more than the thing they're known for.
Warm when it's warm. Funny when it's funny. Honest when it's honest.
Built to travel
The moment the conversation goes underneath.
A pattern the guest may not have seen yet.
The moment the guest describes what changed.
The choice they're making about who they're becoming.
Short clips aren't extracted as an afterthought. It's built into the architecture of the show.
The opportunity
Underneath the Story sits at the intersection of storytelling, psychology, relationships, faith, personal growth and culture. It gives recognizable guests a conversation they aren't having everywhere else, and listeners a reason to see their own stories differently.
Potential partners aren't interrupting a show about vulnerability. They're joining a conversation about how people live.
We aren't chasing everyone. We're serving someone: the person who suspects their story still has more to teach them. The smallest viable audience, served generously, becomes the tribe that spreads it. People like us listen to shows like this.
Natural category fit
The bigger idea
Our past explains things. Our patterns reveal things. But neither gets the final word.
What happened?
What did it mean?
What do you want to choose now?