"They’re literally allowing their past to define them, not refine them. And refinement is an active process, and you have to be prepared to do the work if you’re gonna grow." - Dr. John A. King

In this powerful and unflinching conversation, Ken Woodward is in conversation with Dr. John A. King, author, speaker, and PTSD recovery expert, whose life journey moves from profound trauma to purposeful advocacy. A survivor of childhood sexual abuse and trafficking, John transformed personal devastation into a mission to help others move from surviving to thriving through his foundation and mental wellness work.

King reflects on how questions have guided his healing, challenging the tendency to live “from the outside in” and instead pursuing happiness through intentional inner work, and living "inside out." He shares the discipline behind lasting change, emphasizing the incremental progress of 1% shifts that compound over time, and the daily choice to let hardship refine rather than define us.

Together, they explore resilience, identity, and the courage to rewrite one’s story. This episode is a candid reminder that recovery is not instantaneous but forged through persistence, self-honesty, and the relentless decision to keep moving forward.

This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com.

Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions)

Keep questioning!

"I don’t want hope as a primary strategy for living well." - Ken Woodward

In this solo episode of Curated Questions, Ken Woodward explores hope not as a feeling or slogan, but as a muscle, something built, weakened, and strengthened through use.

Prompted by Alex Honnold’s free-solo climb and his own season of uncertainty, Ken reflects on the collapse of trust in institutions and the fragility of inherited forms of hope. Drawing on psychological and neuroscientific research, he reframes hope as a cognitive skill set rooted in agency and pathways, the belief that we can act and imagine multiple routes forward, even without certainty.

Ken examines how rumination, paralysis, and outsourced responsibility erode hope, and how well-chosen questions can interrupt despair and reengage possibility. Moving from individual to collective hope, he invites listeners to consider where their own “hope muscles” have atrophied and what small, concrete actions might rebuild them.

This episode is not a lesson on hope, but a vulnerable, out-loud search for it, grounded in questions, courage, and shared responsibility.

This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com.

Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions)

Keep questioning!

#70 Dr. John A. King: Refined, Not Defined: Discipline of Relentless Resilience

#68 Ken Woodward: Hope Is A Muscle