Moped Outlaws

Being Surprised Instead of Bracing for Impact – Scott Bloom | Episode 270

October 19, 2026/by Two Outlaws

Scott Bloom set out to satirize the world of self-help. The result was The Atomic Morning Miracle, a book that plays with the promises of personal transformation while leaving room for something more complicated: the strange ways a life can unfold when we keep doing the work but loosen our grip on how everything is supposed to turn out.

Scott is a comedian, author, and keynote speaker. In this conversation, he joins Greg and Marc to talk about the book’s unlikely path, the comedy of the self-help industry, and the difference between trying to force a result and staying open to what might happen next.

The conversation gets more personal when Scott talks about the anxiety and depression he experienced during the pandemic. The discussion doesn’t pretend that a positive attitude makes difficult circumstances disappear. It asks what we can understand about ourselves after we’ve been through them—and what empathy looks like when we stop assuming we know what someone else’s experience feels like.

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The Work of Staying Human – Eric Robinson | Episode 269

October 12, 2026/by Two Outlaws

What happens when a life of faith leads you somewhere you never expected to go? For Eric Robinson, that journey took him from Christian ministry into a 25-year career with the FBI, where he became a special agent, firearms instructor, and SWAT operator. Along the way, the work challenged more than his professional skills. It challenged what he thought he knew about people, morality, and the meaning of doing good.

In this episode of Moped Outlaws, Greg and Marc sit down with Eric for a wide-ranging conversation about the space between conviction and certainty, justice and compassion, and the stories we tell ourselves about who is good, who is bad, and who is capable of change.

Eric describes how the stress of pastoral ministry eventually pushed him toward a new path. He also reflects on the values he carried with him: a commitment to grace, a willingness to welcome people without flinching, and the belief that our first responsibility is to treat others with love and dignity.

Those values took on new meaning in the FBI. Working investigations involving serious crimes, vulnerable victims, and people who had caused real harm taught Eric that understanding someone is not the same as excusing what they have done. He speaks candidly about informants who found a measure of redemption, the importance of accountability, and how approaching people without immediate condemnation could make him more effective at his job.

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Build It Yourself – Tyler Craig | Episode 268

October 5, 2026/by Two Outlaws

What happens when a life spent surfing, making things, traveling with musicians, and figuring things out on the fly eventually becomes the foundation for building something of your own?

In Episode #268, Moped Outlaws rides with Tyler Craig, owner, creator, and artist behind Makau Makers. Tyler grew up surrounded by surfing, with three generations of his family connected to the ocean. From Southern California to the Big Island of Hawaii and back again, the water has been a constant presence in his life.

That relationship with surfing eventually became part of something much larger. Tyler talks about growing up in Hawaii, earning respect in the water, learning the unwritten rules of local surf culture, and what the ocean has taught him about patience, timing, adaptability, and paying attention to the conditions around you.

We also travel back through another major chapter of Tyler’s life: his years working in the music business as tour manager for Pepper. What began with friends from Hawaii arriving on the mainland eventually became more than a decade of touring, from vans and house parties to the Warped Tour, international travel, and sold-out shows at places like Red Rocks.

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Learning to Hold What We Feel – Lindy James | Episode 267

September 28, 2026/by Two Outlaws

What happens when we stop trying to fix every feeling and learn instead to stay present with what is actually happening in the body?

In Episode #267, Moped Outlaws rides with Lindy James, a Tantra counselor and coach whose work explores intimacy, embodiment, relationships, boundaries, consent, and the ways we learn to inhabit our own energy. Lindy talks openly about why she loves this work, what she sees happen between partners, and what becomes possible when people learn to listen beneath the stories they tell about one another.

The conversation moves through menopause and the changes it can bring to intimacy, the distinction between holding and gripping, masculine and feminine energy, emotional triggers, and the challenge of allowing ourselves and our partners to be fully human rather than demanding perfection. Lindy describes working with couples who discover that beneath an argument about something as ordinary as taking out the garbage may be a much younger wound asking to be seen.

Again and again, the conversation returns to the body. Lindy talks about embodiment practices, breathing, sensing the pelvic floor, recognizing an energetic field, and learning to stay with discomfort long enough for something new to emerge. She describes Tantra not simply as a practice involving sexuality, but as a path toward greater aliveness, awareness, and connection.

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When Systems Shape Us — Cynthia Drake Morrow | Episode 266

September 21, 2026/by Two Outlaws

What happens when the systems surrounding us begin shaping the way we think, work, lead, and even treat one another?

On Episode 266 of Moped Outlaws, we ride with Cynthia Drake Morrow, assistant professor of public health at Michigan State University, life sciences consultant, researcher, and co-author of Administrative Intelligence with Jennifer Wisdom.

The conversation begins with empathy and emotional intelligence, but quickly moves beneath the surface. Cynthia asks us to look beyond individual personality and consider the organizational forces that can either support or erode empathy, psychological safety, creativity, collaboration, and productivity. Sometimes the problem isn’t that people don’t know how to work together. Sometimes the system itself makes good work unnecessarily difficult.

That idea comes alive in Cynthia’s description of what she calls “portal land”—the maze of systems, platforms, permissions, billing structures, incentives, and administrative workarounds that can grow inside organizations. What may look like a technology problem or an individual performance problem can actually be a symptom of deeper structural forces.

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Home in the Heart of the Tenderloin — JJ Smith | Episode #265

September 14, 2026/by Two Outlaws

What happens when you stop looking at a troubled neighborhood from the outside and start seeing it as home?

For JJ Smith, the Tenderloin in San Francisco is home. He has spent much of his life here, and his connection to the people on these streets is not theoretical. It comes from family, experience, survival, mistakes, loss, friendship, and a deep belief that the people around him are still people, no matter what circumstances they are living through.

In this conversation, JJ takes Greg and Marc into that world and talks openly about his own history. He remembers growing up without parents around and taking responsibility for his younger brother and sister. He describes getting into the street drug trade as a young man because he believed he needed to find a way to provide for his family. He also talks about watching people close to him struggle with addiction, including his brother, whose death in 2022 came after JJ had spent days trying to help him find treatment. Read more

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What Happens When We Stop Talking? — Paul Greenberg | Episode #264

September 7, 2026/by Two Outlaws

What happens when we stop talking to one another?

For Professor Paul Greenberg, that question has been part of a life spent moving between worlds. He grew up with a father who was both a psychiatrist and a film critic, discovered early that writing could be a way of making sense of the world, and eventually found himself in the recently collapsed Soviet Union helping train journalists who were learning how to practice journalism in a new political landscape.

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There’s No Justice, Just Us: Elizabeth Mikotowicz on Healing, Empathy & Agency | #263

August 31, 2026/by Two Outlaws

Some conversations take us into difficult places. The second ride with Elizabeth Mikotowicz takes us there—but it also keeps asking what happens when we find our way back.

Elizabeth is the author of No Justice, Just Us, a book rooted in her experiences with the criminal justice system, addiction, incarceration, trauma, and recovery. In this conversation, she talks openly about what she saw and experienced behind bars, the people she met there, and the ways systems can shape—and sometimes distort—the lives of the people moving through them.

But the deeper movement of this conversation is personal. Elizabeth talks about learning to recognize the survival behaviors she had developed, confronting the ways trauma had affected her relationships, and discovering how much changes when we begin to set boundaries and take responsibility for our own healing.

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