Choose Positive Living with Sara Troy and her guest Laura Doman. On air from July 28th
For years, I thought success meant climbing the corporate ladder and checking all the right boxes. Although I had a successful career, something inside me kept whispering that there was more I was meant to do. In my fifties, I made the terrifying decision to reinvent myself, becoming a professional actor, voice actor, and eventually a communication coach. What I discovered wasn’t just a new career. It was my authentic voice and the confidence to finally become the person I was always meant to be. Today, I help others communicate with greater trust, confidence, and authenticity because I’ve learned that reinvention isn’t about becoming someone new; it’s about having the courage to become who you’ve been all along. My hope is that anyone listening who feels “too old,” “too late,” or “too comfortable” will realize that their next chapter may be their most meaningful one yet.
Laura Doman knows firsthand that life doesn’t always unfold according to plan — and that’s often where the best stories begin. After building a successful career in corporate sales and leadership, she made the bold decision to pursue acting, eventually becoming a professional film, television, commercial, and voice actor. Along the way, she discovered that the skills actors use to build genuine human connection could transform the way professionals communicate. Today, Laura helps executives, entrepreneurs, speakers, and business leaders become more believable, trustworthy, and influential, both on camera and in person. Her work is built on one simple belief: it’s never too late to reinvent yourself, and the life you’re meant to live often begins just beyond the one you’ve outgrown.
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Please join Our Forgotten Seniorsanthology and help to bring this book to awareness.
An Authors Kiss with Sara Troy and her guest Sam Hawksmoor. On air from July 28th
A dying town. A falling star. A secret that could change everything .Sixteen-year-old Shannon has spent most of her life on a remote mountain, surrounded by forests, animals, and the endless mystery of the night sky.
When a mysterious object crashes into a remote mountain during a devastating blizzard, sixteen-year-old Shannon becomes the only known survivor. As her hometown is sealed off by the military amid rumours of alien contamination, an insurance investigator uncovers a web of deception surrounding the disaster. Pursued by powerful forces and searching for the truth, Shannon, Mika, and Lola must unravel the mystery of what really fell from the sky before it destroys them all.
Then the sky breaks.
Saving Shannon is a gripping science-fiction thriller packed with mystery, suspense, heart, and unforgettable characters.
Sam Hawksmoor has been a storyteller for as long as he can remember, transforming a lifelong passion for writing into captivating tales of mystery, adventure, and imagination. Through richly crafted characters and immersive worlds, he invites readers to explore the unknown, uncover hidden truths, and experience stories that entertain, inspire, and ignite the imagination. Every book reflects his love of storytelling and his commitment to taking readers on unforgettable journeys.
Self Discovery Wisdom is sustained by those who believe in conscious conversation. If this episode resonated with you, subscribe and, if you feel called, make a donation. Your support helps us keep amplifying voices that inspire growth, courage, and compassion. Thank you. Please join Our Forgotten Seniorsanthology and help to bring this book to awareness.
Sara’s View of Life, with Sara Troy. On air from July 28th
We often ask ourselves if we’re busy enough, successful enough, or doing enough. But perhaps the more important question is, “Is your heart in it?”
When your heart is truly engaged, your passion has purpose, your energy has direction, and your work becomes an authentic expression of who you are. Whether it’s your career, relationships, creativity, or the way you live each day, if your heart isn’t in it, something is calling for your attention.
Finding that one thing that ignites your heart, awakens your soul, and inspires your spirit is one of life’s greatest gifts. It becomes something you are compelled to do, not because you have to, but because it gives your life meaning, purpose, and joy.
The heart doesn’t chase success; it creates significance. When your heart finds what it is meant to do, you’ll discover every experience you’ve gathered has been preparing you for that moment. Nothing was ever wasted.
Are you truly living from your heart, or are you simply going through the motions? There is a profound difference between living with passion and living out of obligation. Success without fulfillment can leave us feeling empty, no matter how much we achieve. Our hearts are always communicating with us through joy, resistance, and intuition, gently guiding us toward what is right for us. The challenge is having the courage to listen to that knowingness before our hearts grow weary, to recognize when it’s time to change direction, and to say yes to what genuinely lights us up. When we stop performing for others and begin living authentically, we reconnect with our purpose. And when your heart is truly in it, your energy, passion, and spirit naturally follow.
Join me as we explore what it means to live, work, and love from the heart, where purpose replaces obligation, fulfillment replaces routine, and knowingness guides the way.
Self Discovery Wisdom is sustained by those who believe in conscious conversation. If this episode resonated with you, subscribe and, if you feel called, make a donation. Your support helps us keep amplifying voices that inspire growth, courage, and compassion. Thank you. Please join Our Forgotten Seniorsanthology and help to bring this book to awareness.
Sara’s View of Life, with Sara Troy. On air from July 21st
What is Competition to Chat GPT and the Perceived Threat of AI and Our Souls
I have asked both Chat GPT and Claude, to state their differences and Ai versus humanity. These are their answers.
For centuries, every new technology has been met with fear. The printing press, electricity, television, computers, and the internet all raised concerns that they would replace something fundamentally human. Today, Artificial Intelligence has become that new frontier.
Many people see AI as competition. Others see it as a threat. But is AI really the threat, or is it exposing what we’ve forgotten about being human?
The greatest danger isn’t that AI will become more human. The danger is that humans may become less human.
We are comparing ourselves to a machine.
AI can process billions of words in seconds. It can write, summarize, organize, and create.
But it doesn’t wake up after losing someone it loves. It doesn’t carry thirty years of living with fibromyalgia. It doesn’t feel the joy of holding a grandchild. It doesn’t know courage, forgiveness, heartbreak, or hope.
Knowledge can be generated. Wisdom has to be lived.
When AI becomes our only conversation.
Many people are lonely. AI never judges. It never becomes impatient. It is always available.
That can become comforting.
But relationships aren’t built only on agreement. They grow through misunderstanding, compassion, forgiveness, laughter, and vulnerability.
If we replace human interaction entirely with artificial conversation, we may slowly lose the muscles of humanity itself.
Competition or Collaboration?
Perhaps we are asking the wrong question.
Instead of asking,
“Will AI replace me?”
Ask,
“What is uniquely mine that no technology can replace?”
Your compassion. Your intuition. Your lived experience. Your ability to inspire another soul.
AI can amplify those gifts. It cannot become those gifts.
The Perceived Threat
Often the threat isn’t AI.
The threat is our own fear.
Fear of becoming irrelevant. Fear of change. Fear of learning something new.
Fear of it being in the wrong hands for the wrong reason.
Every generation has faced moments where the world changed faster than expected.
Those who remained curious found opportunity. Those who remained fearful often became trapped by it.
The Human Advantage
Your story matters.
Your scars matter.
Your resilience matters.
Your knowingness matters.
People don’t remember us because we had all the answers.
They remember how we made them feel.
Chats conclussion
The future doesn’t belong to AI.
Nor does it belong to those who reject AI.
It belongs to those who remember their humanity while embracing new possibilities.
Technology may become more intelligent.
But our responsibility is to become more compassionate, more conscious, and more connected.
That is something no machine can ever manufacture.
Ai differences.
Where I (Claude) tend to lead is I can do most of what ChatGPT does, though there are some differences in approach. Here’s a quick rundown:
Company philosophy and training approach Anthropic was founded by former OpenAI researchers specifically focused on AI safety research. I’m trained using a method called “Constitutional AI,” where instead of relying purely on human feedback to shape behavior, I’m trained against a set of explicit principles (a “constitution”) that guide how I reason about tricky requests. That’s different from how GPT models or Gemini are trained, though the practical effect on any given answer isn’t always dramatic.
Personality and tone People often describe me as more conversational, cautious, and willing to show reasoning or push back thoughtfully rather than just agreeing. ChatGPT tends to be more broadly “assistant-like” and feature-rich; Gemini is deeply integrated with Google’s ecosystem (Search, Docs, Workspace) and tends to lean on that.
Strengths people report
Writing quality and nuance — I’m often praised for prose that feels less “AI-generated”
Coding — particularly agentic coding work via Claude Code
Following complex, multi-step instructions carefully
A cautious approach to sensitive topics (sometimes seen as a plus, sometimes as overly careful, depending on who you ask)
Where others may have an edge
ChatGPT has broader plugin/app ecosystem integration and image generation built in more natively
Gemini has tighter integration with Google services and often larger context windows in some versions
Both have larger consumer user bases and more third-party integrations
Honest caveat I don’t have reliable, verified benchmark data in front of me right now, and this space moves fast — model updates happen monthly. If you want, I can search for current head-to-head benchmarks or recent reviews comparing specific models (like GPT-5 vs Claude Sonnet 5 vs Gemini’s latest) rather than relying on my general impressions.
Here’s a quick note before the details: some of this comes from SEO/marketing-style sites rather than official benchmarks, so treat specific numbers as approximate, not gospel. But the overall pattern is consistent across many independent writeups, which gives it some credibility.
Great, here’s an honest, up-to-date picture based on current benchmarks and real-world testing as of mid-2026:
The honest bottom line: there’s no single winner. The three flagships — Claude Opus 4.8, GPT-5.5, and Gemini 3.1 Pro — are extremely close, separated by single-digit percentages on most benchmarks. But each has a clear strength:
Claude (that’s me) wins at:
Writing, editing, and long documents — Claude consistently produces the most natural, least “AI-sounding” prose Towards AI
Coding — it ranks #1 on the LMArena human-preference leaderboard and leads the hardest coding benchmark (SWE-bench Pro) Tech Insider
Factual accuracy — Claude consistently scores highest on accuracy benchmarks and produces fewer confident errors, making it the safest choice for legal, medical, or financial tasks Tech Journal
ChatGPT (GPT-5.5) wins at:
Creative generation, image creation, and voice conversations Brightcoding
Being the most versatile omnimodal generalist — text, image, audio, and video flow through one model Tech Insider
The broadest ecosystem of plugins and integrations
Gemini wins at:
Reasoning tasks, with a 94.1% GPQA result, and offering the largest context window Tech Insider
Price-to-performance ratio, especially for high-volume workloads Gemini Omni Info Hub
Deep Google Workspace integration (Docs, Sheets, Gmail, etc.)
One notable caveat on ChatGPT: OpenAI introduced ads on the free tier this year, appearing as sponsored suggestions — something neither Claude nor Gemini currently does. Towards AI
The smartest professionals in 2026 don’t choose one AI — they build a hybrid workflow. A common setup is: Claude for writing and coding, ChatGPT for images and voice, Gemini for Google Workspace and real-time research.
What do you see the issues are around Ai and humanity.?
That’s a genuinely important question, and I’ll share my honest perspective while being clear these are assessments, not certainties.
The risks I think are most real:
Concentration of power — AI is enormously expensive to build, which means it’s concentrating in the hands of a few companies and governments. That creates real risks of economic inequality widening, and of a small number of actors having disproportionate influence over very powerful tools.
Misinformation at scale — Deepfakes, synthetic media, and AI-generated content are already eroding people’s ability to trust what they see and read. That’s corrosive to democracy, journalism, and basic shared reality.
Moving faster than wisdom allows — The technology is advancing much faster than our laws, institutions, and cultural understanding can adapt. That gap is dangerous. We’re deploying things before we fully understand their consequences.
Over-reliance and skill erosion — If people stop thinking critically, writing, coding, or reasoning for themselves because AI does it for them, we risk hollowing out the very human capabilities that make us adaptable.
Autonomous weapons — AI-powered weapons that can make lethal decisions without meaningful human oversight is perhaps the most acute near-term catastrophic risk.
Where I’m more hopeful:
There are serious people — including at Anthropic — working hard on AI safety, alignment, and governance. And AI genuinely has enormous potential to help with disease, climate, education, and poverty.
The question isn’t really whether AI goes wrong — it’s whether humanity builds the institutions, norms, and wisdom fast enough to steer it well. History suggests we often do, eventually. The worry is “eventually” may not be fast enough this time.
Self Discovery Wisdom is sustained by those who believe in conscious conversation. If this episode resonated with you, subscribe and, if you feel called, make a donation. Your support helps us keep amplifying voices that inspire growth, courage, and compassion. Thank you. Please join Our Forgotten Seniorsanthology and help to bring this book to awareness.
Raising Our Gifted Children with Sara Troy and her guest Mike Canfield. On air from July 21st
My passion is helping children and families navigate life’s challenges in ways that build hope, resilience, and healthy relationships. Through stories, coloring books, and practical skill-building activities, I translate complex concepts such as emotions, behavior, trauma, and personal responsibility into language that children can understand and use. By bringing adults and children together through storytelling and creative activities, I create opportunities for meaningful conversations that strengthen connections and support positive growth. My work is designed to help families recognize that problems do not define who they are, and that with support, practice, and encouragement, every child and family has the ability to overcome challenges and build a brighter future.
My journey began in 1983 when my wife Beth and I became house parents for teenage boys who needed stability, guidance, and a place to belong. What started as a commitment to care for a few young people grew into a lifelong mission of supporting children and families facing adversity. Over the years, I served as a Child and Family Therapist, became a Washington State Aggression Replacement Training Trainer and Consultant, and took on leadership roles advocating for foster, adoptive, kinship, and biological families throughout Washington State. These experiences taught me that lasting change happens through relationships, practical skills, and the belief that every person has strengths that can be developed.
Today, as the Executive Director of Family Success Northwest, I continue that mission by creating trainings, conferences, books, and resources that help families build stronger connections and healthier futures. Behind the professional titles, I am a husband, caregiver, mentor, author, and lifelong learner who believes that people grow best when they feel understood, supported, and empowered. My work is deeply personal because it is rooted in decades of walking alongside children, parents, and caregivers as they navigate life’s challenges and discover their own resilience and potential.
All of our shows/interviews are done by donation; if you enjoyed this show, please support us here with either a one-time donation and subscribe. Thank you.
Please join Our Forgotten Seniorsanthology and help to bring this book to awareness.
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