Craig Stanton: Transitions and The Book of Forgotten Words

This is the last episode of 2025 so I wanted to share a few reflections before jumping into the main conversation. 

2025 has been a year with lots of change. Many friends have experienced their lives majorly disrupted in unexpected ways. Completely turned upside down. In my personal journey, I lost my dad which was a catalyst for lots of reflection and subsequent growth. My identity shifted significantly in the past few months as my husband changed jobs and I am no longer part of the Foreign Service Life—something that majorly influenced everything (no exaggeration) in my life for the past 15 years. 

I’m grateful for the amazing conversations that I’ve been able to have here on the podcast. I continue to meet people who inspire me, teach me, challenge me, and encourage me. These conversations woven into the challenges of life create a beautiful tapestry that I am incredibly grateful for!

I’m more convinced than ever that every single human has amazing stories and I’m even more excited and honored than when I started, to host and share some of these stories here on the Make Life Less Difficult podcast. We’re 4.5 years into the journey, almost 260 episodes and I still have a long list of people who I want to have on the podcast and I’m continuing to meet wonderful people who I want to have on the podcast! What a beautiful gift and journey this is. Thank you SO much for being part of it. Whether you are a regular listener, an occasional listener, or a first time listener, whether you’ve been a guest, will be a future guest, or never care to be a guest, I’m deeply grateful for you! I’m grateful for Russ Watts who guest hosts and co-hosts and continues to be an amazing collaborator in the storytelling world!

If you would like to support this endeavor, there’s a link in the show notes to a platform called “Buy me a coffee”. Click that and anything you share is greatly appreciated. 

As we approach 2026, I hope to expand and grow this podcast, so taking time to leave a review helps with that and also sharing an episode or two with a friend or three! I’m also looking to expand my speaking engagements, so please keep me in mind if you know of opportunities or needs for speakers and presenters. 

For those of you who find a word or theme for the year, I’ll share that my word for 2026 is Space. It’s a reminder and encourager for me to take up space in the world, be intentional about my external and internal spaces. And ironically (or maybe serendipitously) I currently have a palate expander that is making me talk with this different diction. So literally I’m creating more space in my mouth and head. And I just put that together with my word for the year as I was preparing these thoughts. Very cool! 

And now I’d like to invite you into a beautiful conversation with my guest, Craig Stanton. We explore transitions and forgotten words and much more. I’m delighted to share this as the final episode of 2025. Have a wonderful start to 2026! And if you need a goal for the new year, come be a guest with me here! 

And now… my conversation with Craig!

Connect with Craig on LinkedIn

Read more about the Book of Forgotten Words on Craig's Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/forgottenwords