REVERB 34: Navigating Life’s Cliffs and Fog
Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast
Andy Stanley
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 June 2026
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What do you do when the path ahead is unclear?
In this REVERB episode, Andy Stanley and Suzy Gray dive deeper into the uncertainty that often accompanies major life transitions. Expanding on Andy’s conversation with Jim Collins, they explore why seasons of "fog" are a normal part of life, how small steps create momentum when clarity is lacking, and what it looks like to discover your unique encodings so you can spend more time doing what you were made to do.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast Reverb, a conversation designed to help leaders go even |
| 0:07.8 | further faster by digging deeper into this month's episode. I'm your host, Susie Gray. Andy, in last |
| 0:14.1 | week's conversation, you talk with Jim Collins about his new book, What to Make of a Life. And it was |
| 0:20.7 | what to make of a great conversation. |
| 0:22.6 | It was amazing. Yeah, he gave us so much time, but then again, you have been inviting him to be on |
| 0:28.1 | the podcast for how many years? A couple of years now. A couple of years. And you were relentless in a |
| 0:32.5 | good way. And they said, just wait, just wait, just wait. And so they came through and wow, |
| 0:37.4 | what a great conversation. Because it's a great book just wait. And so they came through and, wow, what a great conversation |
| 0:38.3 | because it's a great book. Yeah. And I had time to read the whole book and digest it. And as I said, on the podcast, Andrews reading it. And it was great conversation. It was a great conversation and a great book. Well, the book we talked about is Jim's new book, What to Make of a Life. And in it, you know, you guys covered a lot of ground in your |
| 0:54.8 | conversation about the book. And the idea, one of the ideas that stood out from your conversation |
| 1:01.2 | was the idea of cliffs and fog. And I love the fact that he kind of dispelled, you know, |
| 1:07.4 | no only certain people are going to have cliffs and like, he's like, no, cliffs are a |
| 1:11.2 | regular part of life. And then talks about an often after a cliff comes the fog. And so let's just |
| 1:18.1 | start there. When Jim talks about cliffs and fog, what stood out to you in that conversation? |
| 1:22.6 | Well, I think anybody that reads the book immediately thinks about their own cliffs. |
| 1:25.8 | That's right. And you don't have to live that long to have cliffs, whether it was the girl who broke up |
| 1:31.1 | with you in high school or the, you know, parents divorcing and suddenly you're ping pong and |
| 1:37.2 | back and forth between parents. The first job that doesn't go well, I was on academic probation and then, well, first |
| 1:45.8 | academic warning, then academic probation at Georgia State. And my mom said to me, famously, |
| 1:51.3 | Andy College isn't for everyone. That's a cliff. I'm like, oh, if your mom doesn't even believe |
| 1:56.5 | you can finish college, things aren't going well. Anyway, so I think we all think about cliffs and the idea that after a cliff, after an unexpected |
| 2:06.8 | ending or tragic ending, or even something good happens, but now it's over and now what, there |
... |
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