Episodes

Dr. Stephany Powell provides a unique insight into the world of sexual exploitation and trafficking throughout her appearance on Next Steps Forward, which she gained from her thirty years with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). This experience, coupled with her passion for education and heart for community, make Dr. Powell an incredible leader in the movement to end sexual exploitation and as the Vice President and Director of Law Enforcement Training and Survivor Services at the National...

This week’s guest on Next Steps Forward is someone who program host Chris Meek has respected and admired for a long, long time. Chad Hennings believes that in order to achieve a legacy of excellence, one must live a life of integrity and purpose. In his words, “Excellence isn’t a destination; it’s an identity.” Chad Hennings has lived this message through a nine-year NFL career and three Super Bowl Championships with the Dallas Cowboys, forty-five NFL career combat missions as a U.S. Air Force p...

The focus of this week’s installment of Next Steps Forward is first responders and mental health and program host Chris Meek is excited to welcome Dr. Jena Casas, an expert on the subject matter. Dr. Casas is a licensed clinical psychologist who owns and operates a private practice and a consulting firm in northern Nevada. She holds a master’s degree in Criminal Justice and a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Nevada, Reno. She’s also a certified emergency responder and public saf...

This week’s guest on Next Steps Forward is Alina Donahue, a human trafficking subject matter expert and survivor. She co-created the Shelly Stayer Shelter’s 18-month Human Trafficking Residential Program, a nationally recognized residential program for adult female survivors of sexual human trafficking. She has been certified by the Florida Crime Prevention Training Institute through the Office of the Florida Attorney General. Alina was a mentor and teacher for Project Recovery, a program that h...

Nick Stefanizzi is the Chief Executive Officer of Northwell Health’s direct-to-employer organization, Northwell Direct, which supports businesses through a full spectrum of customized employer health services. Next Steps Forward host Chris Meek is excited to welcome him to the program due, in part, to his work on a mental wellness collaboration between Northwell Direct and the New York Police Department called Finest Care that was launched in July 2022. Throughout the conversation, Nick will spe...

As a boy, John Alite was born into a life of organized crime which led him to serve as the top hitman for John Gotti and the Gambino Crime Family. But living a life of crime came with many dangers and pitfalls, which eventually prompted John to realize there was a better path forward and ultimately inspired him to move on from his regretful past. Now he shares his story with the Next Steps Forward audience in the hopes of teaching others how they can take control of their futures, choose to be t...

Dr. Anna Courie leads AT&T’s commitment to First Responder Health and Wellness. Joining the team in May 2020, Dr.

Dr. Rachel Turow is a psychotherapist, research scientist, mindfulness and compassion teacher, and an adjunct faculty member at Seattle University and at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She joins program host Chris Meek to discuss her work exploring the connections among attention, self-criticism, stressful life experiences, and mental health. Over the years, Dr. Turow noted that many of the strategies that help trauma survivors can also build emotional resilience more generally. Af...

Dr. Elizabeth Klodas, a cardiologist who trained at Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins and practices in Minneapolis, Minnesota, joins Chris Meek for another installment of Next Steps Forward. She’s the author of the book “Slay the Giant: The Power of Prevention in Defeating Heart Disease” and founder of One Step Foods, a company dedicated to helping patients minimize their dependence on medications through strategic dietary change. During an hour focused entirely on health, Dr. Klodas shares with the...

Brian Searcy is the President of The Paratus Group. Founded in 2019, the organization’s objective is to use Brian's decades-tested and proven leadership and training experience to solve a need for relevant, effective, trustworthy principles, training methodologies and programs to allow for the learning of situational awareness. The situational awareness mindset and behaviors that are developed allows critical decisions to be made in the complex dynamics of the home, schools, the workplace and ou...

Lori Mihalich-Levin believes in empowering working parents. She pursues this mission as the founder and CEO of Mindful Return, author of “Back to Work After Baby: How to Plan and Navigate a Mindful Return from Maternity Leave,” and co-host of the Parents at Work podcast. On this installment of Next Steps Forward, she shares with program host Chris Meek and the audience how and why she has been committed to promoting women’s equality and leadership throughout her career and how other women can ef...

SSgt Bryce Cherryholmes, USMC (Ret), served faithfully for eight years in the United States Marine Corps. During his first deployment, Cherryholmes incurred an initial back injury that became much worse over time. Due to the back injury and subsequent surgery, he received a full medical retirement and was Retired from Active Duty. After retiring, SSgt Cherryholmes underwent spinal cord surgery which unfortunately, due to complications, left him paralyzed. Today, he serves as an Ambassador for th...

If you or someone you know is living with an eating disorder, today’s conversation could be a potentially life changing, or even life saving, one. This Week Dr. Dena Cabrera and Megan Kniskern join program host Chris Meek to discuss complex eating disorders and nutrition therapy for mental health. Megan Kniskern is a registered dietitian, a licensed dietitian nutritionist and certified eating disorder specialist supervisor. For the past 15 years, Megan has been working in the field of eating dis...

Joel Lesses founded the Education Training Center as a means of counseling those marginalized by trauma, addiction and psychological distress, and its effects including incarceration, homelessness and institutionalization. He is dedicated to reframing mental health distress as a potential spiritual marker. Joel has lived in Nepal and Israel and is also a poet expressing the landscape of the mystical elements of our human beings. He believes world religion, poetry, spirituality, and meditation en...

Next Steps Forward host Chris Meek is excited to welcome Dr. Nikole Benders-Hadi to the program to discuss timely topics surrounding wellness, such as how to reduce the stigma around mental health, how to improve mental health care access and address current inequalities that exist in mental health treatment. Dr. Benders-Hadi is a board certified psychiatrist and Medical Director of Behavioral Health at Included Health, a leading virtual care and healthcare navigation company. She is particularl...

God often uses the weakest among us to make the greatest impact. Bob Vander Plaats, President and CEO of The FAMiLY LEADER whose gospel-first mission is to strengthen families by coming alongside the Church and inspiring Christ-like leadership, provides insight into this very truth. Author of Light From Lucas, Bob joins Next Steps Forward to share the poignant account of his son Lucas, who although severely disabled at birth offered inspirational lessons throughout his life and insurmountable jo...

Karith Foster is a Diversity Engagement Specialist whose signature programs are impacting lives at academic institutions, organizations and corporations across America. Now, she is joining Chris Meek on Next Steps Forward to address these same issues of diversity, inclusion and effective communication with the program's audience. Karith’s goal is to engage and inspire the audience to navigate the journey of mutual respect between themselves and others with an authentic desire to help others and ...

Dr. Dawson Church is an award-winning science writer with three best-selling books to his credit and the founder of the EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) Universe with a mission to bring the healing benefits of EFT tapping and meditation to others. With a passion for seeing people heal, Dr. Church joins Chris Meek on this volume of Next Steps Forward to speak about how EFT techniques work, why EFT is one of the quickest and simplest ways to produce healing, as well as how to apply these breakth...

Thank you for joining Next Steps Forward as we launch into 2023 with a continued commitment to helping improve your wellbeing, become even more empowered and achieve more than you ever thought possible. As always, it's an honor and a pleasure to have you with us again! Our guest this week is Ross Szabo, co-author of the book Behind Happy Faces: Taking Charge of Your Mental Health and author of The Kids Book About Anxiety. As the wellness director at Geffen Academy at UCLA, Ross is working on cha...

Vitalijus Majoravas is a sleep biohacker, certified sleep and recovery coach, certified Buteyko clinic breathing instructor and co-founder of Pulsetto, who has spent more than ten years in the sleep products industry. On this episode of Next Steps Forward, Vitalijus speaks with Chris Meek about the vagus nerve, how it is affecting us and, in particular, how vagus nerve stimulation can affect mental health and practical ways to go about stimulating the vagus nerve. Throughout the hour he will als...

Constable Kimberley Tent is an author, poet, retired police officer and owner of Apothic Entertainment. In her book “Parts of Me,” Kimberley details how she had given up on life and her battle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when a stranger changed everything and provided her with the courage she needed to face her biggest adversary: herself. Now she joins program host Chris Meek in this installment of Next Steps Forward to speak about how her collection of poems found in “Parts of Me...

On this edition of Next Steps Forward, Dr. Katherine Grill, the CEO and co-founder of Neolth, a Walnut Creek, California technology company that provides personalized mental health support to teens through a self-guided program, joins Chris Meek for an empowering discussion. Before founding Neolth, Katherine worked at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., conducting National Institutes of Health research. She’s also been a university professor, teaching courses in psychology and neur...

Did you know that the brain generates more energy in one day than all of the cell phones in the world combined? Dr. Tiffany Tajiri joins Next Steps Forward host Chris Meek to speak more on that incredible fact, as well as in-depth about the power of the brain and how it impacts every single cell of the human body. A licensed and board-certified clinical psychologist, Air Force Veteran, author of the faith-based recovery book Peace After Combat, and founder of the nonprofit Stand Up and Recover, ...

Laura Cox Kaplan is the creator of She Said / She Said — a multimedia platform for women who strive to live their best lives with intention and who are seeking insight and inspiration through thoughtful conversation and content focused on women. On this episode of Next Steps Forward, Laura joins program host Chris Meek to speak about career and life pivots. This includes how to come to terms when something you love no longer fits in your life or the legacy that you want to leave behind, how to g...