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What does it actually feel like to watch the person you love more than anything slowly disappear? Justin Schunk joins Paul on The Open Exchange for one of the most honest conversations this show has ever had.

Justin lost his wife Katie on April 29th, 2024 — after a 3-year battle with stage 4 metastatic colon cancer that had spread to her lungs and liver. She was in the best shape of her life when they found it. There were no warning signs.

In this episode, Justin shares what it was like to receive a terminal diagnosis, how he processed grief while Katie was still alive, what the final days looked like, what he misses most, how he's raising their kids alone, and why giving yourself grace might be the most important thing nobody tells you when you lose someone.

This is not a clinical breakdown of the stages of grief. This is a real conversation between two old friends — one who's been through it, one who hasn't — about the raw, nonlinear, complicated, and deeply human experience of loss.

Whether you're going through it right now, supporting someone who is, or just trying to understand what grief actually looks like up close — this one's for you.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction & Why This Episode Matters
01:10 Meeting Justin: A Decade of Friendship Before This Conversation
02:24 April 29th, 2024 — The Day Justin Lost Katie
03:00 The First Cancer Diagnosis (10 Years Earlier): Stage 1, No Panic
04:20 The Second Diagnosis: Stage 4, Terminal, No Evidence of Disease Possible
05:48 No Symptoms — How Katie's Fitness May Have Hidden the Signs
08:37 Processing the Terminal Diagnosis as a Husband
09:25 Finding a Therapist Who Specialized in Terminal Illness
10:42 What Happens When Old Anger Comes Back (Regression in Grief)
11:43 You Can't Grieve for 3 Years — Life Still Has to Continue
14:03 Paul's Own Relationship With Loss and Detachment
15:27 What Justin Didn't Expect: How His Father's Death Felt Different
16:19 The Most Unexpected Part of Grief: Giving Yourself Grace
17:54 Coming Home After — The Silence and the Permanence
19:26 Grief Isn't Linear: The Roller Coaster Nobody Warns You About
20:49 Looking at Old Photos and Learning to Sit in the Sadness
23:01 Raising the Kids: What to Watch For and What's Gone Right
26:56 Keeping Katie's Memory Alive in the House
28:19 Feeling Guilty About NOT Feeling Worse (His Father vs. His Wife)
29:40 Choosing How You React When You Can't Control Anything Else
30:37 The Guilt of Being Happy Again
33:25 Emotional Awareness Justin Didn't Have Before
34:11 When People Break Down in Front of the Grieving Person
35:06 What Would Katie Say About How He's Doing?
37:03 Talking Out Loud to Katie — and Catching Himself
38:12 Their Last Real Conversation
40:05 What He Misses Most: Watching Her Walk Into a Room
41:39 Grieving the Future You Planned — Not Just the Person
43:29 Buying the Dirt Bike: Rediscovering Life Alone
44:04 On "Vulnerability" — Why Justin Rejects the Word
45:32 Advice for Anyone Going Through Grief Right Now

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Most people won't say this out loud — but I will. I've been walking with Christ for 20 years, and I still wrestle. Still waver. Still feel the gap between who I want to be and who I actually show up as on a given day.

In this episode, I'm being completely honest about what faith actually looks like from the inside — not the polished Sunday version, but the real one. The one full of doubt, distance, guilt, and still somehow, hope.

We talk about why the tension you feel doesn't disqualify you. Why the Apostle Paul, Abraham, Moses, Peter, and David — the greatest heroes of Scripture — were all deeply flawed, deeply human, and still used by God in ways that changed the world. We break down what grace actually means, why most people only read half of Romans 6:23, and what the story of Abraham and Isaac reveals about the cross that most people never see.

If you've ever felt like your faith isn't clean enough, consistent enough, or certain enough — this episode was made for you. The struggling believer is still a believer. And if you're in the doubt right now, in the distance, in the middle of the sinking — He's watching the road. And He's already coming.

Chapters
00:00 The Thing Most Believers Feel But Won't Say
01:05 You're Not Broken, You're Not Disqualified
01:54 Even the Apostle Paul Struggled
02:40 The Age of Distraction and the Slow Drift
03:27 Why You Should Start With the Gospel of John
04:22 Shadrach, Job & Abraham — Stories That Prove Everything
06:03 Abraham & Isaac: A Preview of the Cross
07:16 Reading the Bible Like One Continuous Letter
07:42 How Guilt Kept Me From the God I Claimed to Believe In
08:11 Romans 6:23 — Read the Whole Sentence
09:38 What Science Still Can't Explain
11:16 Faith Lives in the Gap
12:10 The Baseball Story — When I Felt That Stillness
14:42 Is Faith Just Psychology?
15:47 The Ache You Feel Is the Design
16:46 Augustine, Solomon & the Restlessness We All Have
17:35 Every Hero of Faith Had Serious Doubts
19:45 David's Psalm of Despair and Praise
21:04 Real Faith Moves — Paul vs. James Explained
23:01 The Prodigal Son's Father Was Watching the Road
24:48 Two Kinds of Trials and What They Promise
25:51 What Gets Built in the Fire Lasts
26:39 Faith Isn't the Absence of Doubt

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Podcast

#Conversations #PersonalDevelopment #Faith #Inspiration #StoryTelling #Podcast

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You're not lazy. You're not a bad dad. You're just carrying something nobody taught you how to put down.

In Episode 96 of The Open Exchange, Keith Turner — my very first guest from Episode 1 — comes back nearly two years later. A lot has changed for both of us.

Keith is now a father of two, one of Connecticut's top mortgage advisors at Homestead Funding, and still one of the most honest people I've sat across from. We didn't do an interview. We had a conversation — the kind men don't usually have on record.

We got into:
→ What work-life balance actually looks like when you're grinding and parenting at the same time
→ The phone problem — and the moment Keith almost snapped his in half
→ Raising kids in a world built for distraction
→ Why your dad might have been doing it right without you knowing
→ Imposter syndrome — even when you've closed 3,000 mortgages
→ The 2026 housing market — why smart buyers are moving NOW before rates drop
→ What happens when rates finally fall (it won't be what you expect)
→ Airbnb, LLCs, and the real housing supply problem
→ Urgent vs. important — the framework that changes everything

This one hit different. Two guys. Two years later. Figuring it out in real time.

Chapters:

• 0:00 Cold Open
•0:05 Welcome Back — Episode 1 Guest Returns
•1:30 What Keith's Life Looks Like Two Years Later
•2:45 Two Kids, Disney Trips & The Dad Life
•5:00 The Pressure Men Don't Talk About
•6:30 Keith's Work-Life Balance System (It Actually Works)
•8:00 The Phone Problem — Being Present for Your Kids
•10:30 The Aaron Paul Story That Will Make You Put Your Phone Down
•12:00 Raising Kids Without the Phone Culture
•14:00 Role Models — What Our Dads Got Right Without Knowing It
•17:00 The Chip Clip Moment — When Keith Almost Snapped
•20:00 The Grind vs. The Guilt: Can You Have Both?
•24:00 Grant Called Keith Mr. Rogers. The Best Compliment a Dad Can Get.
•27:00 Sharpening the Knife in the Age of AI
•30:00 Why Keith Would Never Retire — Even If He Could
•33:00 Fanatical Prospecting, Scaling Back & Knowing What Matters
•38:00 Being a Short-Tempered Parent — The Honest Conversation
•41:00 Your Kids Want Your Time, Not Your Dime
•44:00 Imposter Syndrome — Even at 3,000 Closings
•46:00 Just Do. Detach From the Outcome.
•47:00 Urgent vs. Important — The Framework That Changes Everything
•49:00 2026 Housing Market Outlook with Keith Turner
•50:30 Why Smart Buyers Are Moving NOW (Don't Wait for Rates to Drop)
•52:30 The Hidden Costs of Homeownership Nobody Warns You About
•54:30 Airbnb, LLCs & The Real Housing Supply Problem
•56:30 Approaching 3,000 Closings — A Major Milestone
•58:00 Where to Find Keith + Final Thoughts

📞 FIND KEITH TURNER
Homestead Funding | New London, CT
Search: Keith Turner Homestead Funding
Phone: (444) 444-0650

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🎙️ Follow Me:
TikTok: @paullymtv @theopenexchangepodcast
Instagram: @paullyym @theopenexchangepodcast
Email: Theopenexchangepodcast@gmail.com
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🎙️ Other ways to listen:



Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1Qh1HPG7IF9vlI1Sy21gST

Support the show

'Virtual Tip Jar' - Donate to my show to keep me going! Thank you!

Paypal: https://paypal.me/PaulMartinez89?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US (PaulMartinez89)
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