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Positive Blatherings Podcast

Positive Blatherings Podcast

By: ROC Vox Podcast Network
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About this listen

 Scott "Fitz" is a radio host in Rochester, NY and a filmmaker who has battled depression and celebrates sobriety. His podcast is his attempt to surround himself with positive successful people and to just have an organic conversation. Join him as he takes an organic approach to the standard interview. No preparation, no script. Letting the conversation have a mind of its own: a Blathering.Copyright ROC Vox Podcast Network Spirituality
Episodes
  • Peter Conners | The Deadhead Running the Poetry Press That Put Rochester on the Map

    Peter Conners | The Deadhead Running the Poetry Press That Put Rochester on the Map
    Apr 29 2026
    Before Peter Conners ran one of America's most respected poetry presses, he was following the Grateful Dead across the country in a van.

    Conners is the Publisher and Executive Director of BOA Editions — a Rochester-based nonprofit that has quietly won Pulitzer Prizes, national awards, and the respect of the entire literary world for 50 years, while most Rochesterians have no idea it exists. He joins Fitz at ROC Vox to talk about how a self-described troublemaker from Sutherland High School ended up running an institution — and why, at its 50th anniversary, losing its federal funding isn't going to stop it.
    In this episode: BOA's controversial first book by a Pulitzer Prize winner no one else would publish, why nonprofit publishers are the only thing standing between the world and the end of new poetry, the brutal economics of audiobooks (sell 1,000 copies, make $100), and what a decade of sobriety taught Peter about what publishing is really for.

    CHAPTERS
    00:00 Welcome to Positive Blatherings
    00:56 Meet Peter Conners and BOA Editions
    02:18 The Founding Story: First Book to First Pulitzer
    07:44 Why Poetry Needs Nonprofit Publishers
    09:09 20 Years of Publishing's Digital Revolution
    13:28 The Hard Truth About Audiobook Economics
    18:28 From Troublemaker to Writer: Peter's Origin Story
    22:00 A Family Defined by Service
    25:20 How Peter Became BOA's Publisher
    31:49 Going Public: Writing His Own Story
    36:38 Sobriety, Recovery, and Giving Back
    42:05 BOA's Future: Surviving the NEA Cut

    CONNECT
    BOA Editions → https://www.boaeditions.org
    Peter Conners → https://www.peterconners.net
    Growing Up Dead: The Hallucinated Confessions of a Teenage Deadhead → https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Up-Dead-Hallucinated-Confessions/dp/0306817330
    Merch Table Blues → https://www.amazon.com/Merch-Table-Blues-Peter-Conners/dp/1945665319
    Box of Rain documentary → https://www.amazon.com/Grateful-Dead-Box-Rain/dp/B0D19TCPPM
    Writers & Books Rochester → https://wab.org
    ROC Vox → https://rocvox.com

    New episodes every Tuesday.

    #BOAEditions #Poetry #IndependentPublishing #Rochester #RochesterNY #LiteraryPublishing #PoetryBooks #NonprofitArts #GratefulDead #PeterConners #PositiveBlatherings #ROCVox #Memoir #BookPublishing #IndependentPress #ArtsAdvocacy #SmallPress #WritingLife #AuthorInterview #BookCommunity #LiteraryWorld #ReadMorePoetry #RochesterArts #Deadhead #GratefulDeadCommunity #NEAFunding #PoetryLovers #WritersAndBooks #Sobriety #PublishingIndustry
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    46 mins
  • The Neuroscience of Motivation and What Leaders Get Wrong

    The Neuroscience of Motivation and What Leaders Get Wrong
    Apr 28 2026
    Most conversations — at work, across the dinner table, across the political divide — are failing. Executive coach Keith Greer says the reason is simple: we're all addicted to being right.

    Keith Greer, Executive Coach and leadership development specialist, joins Fitz at ROC Vox for a return visit six years in the making. With 40+ years spanning clinical social work, family therapy, and executive coaching, Keith brings the full weight of his career to one question: why do most conversations miss the mark — and what actually works? In this episode you'll hear the neuroscience behind why certain leadership behaviors destroy team trust, how Conversational Intelligence explains what happens in your team's brain during that conference room pitch, and why the single most powerful thing any of us can do right now — in the office, at the Thanksgiving table, or across the political divide — is stop talking and listen.

    CHAPTERS
    00:00 Intro: Keith Returns After Six Years
    01:23 The Grandpa Gig: Love, Fun, and Three Grandsons
    07:50 Building a Coaching Practice on His Own Terms
    10:00 Why Technical Brilliance Doesn't Make a Leader
    14:51 Family Businesses: Where Bloodlines Meet Business
    20:44 Why You Can't Inject Motivation Into Someone
    22:38 Conversational Intelligence and the Neuroscience of Trust
    26:23 The "Addiction to Being Right" Kills Conversations
    33:50 Self-Awareness Is Courageous Work, Not "Touchy-Feely"
    35:04 Shut Up and Listen: The #1 Conversation Strategy
    38:40 Productive Disagreement Across the Political Divide
    46:21 Finding Common Ground Through Shared Humanity

    CONNECT
    Keith Greer Coaching → https://www.keithgreercoaching.com
    ROC Vox → https://www.rocvox.com
    Fresh doses of Positivity every Tuesday and Wednesday.

    #ConversationalIntelligence #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveCoaching #MotivationalInterviewing #LeadershipSkills #FamilyBusiness #SelfAwareness #ActiveListening #NeuroscienceOfLeadership #PositiveBlatherings #ROCVox #Rochester #CommunicationSkills #TeamBuilding #LeadershipCoaching #PersonalDevelopment #MindsetShift #WorkplaceWellness #ProductiveConversations #EmotionalIntelligence
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    1 hr
  • My Cousin Meg | She Lost Her Son Then Found the Secret to Living

    My Cousin Meg | She Lost Her Son Then Found the Secret to Living
    Apr 27 2026
    She heard a voice say "pain is coming" — and ten days later, her seven-year-old son was gone.

    Meg Fitzgerald joins her cousin Scott Fitzgerald at ROC Vox to talk about what happens when you decide grief is going to mean something. In this episode of Positive Blatherings, Meg shares the story behind her new book Don't Miss the Magic — a twelve-year journey through loss, spiritual awakening, synchronicities that defy explanation, and the daily practices that kept her alive when survival felt impossible.

    You'll hear how Meg built a personal prescription for grief that anyone going through a hard season can use, how she discovered that internal energy changes outcomes in ways that words and body language alone cannot, what it felt like to receive undeniable signs from her son Ryan across multiple mediums and years, and how a voice at a stoplight — and a seven-year-old's dream of a million stuffed animals — shaped the rest of her life.

    CHAPTERS
    0:00 Welcome Back to Positive Blatherings
    1:37 Meet Meg Fitzgerald
    5:01 Ryan's Story: The Accident and the First Night
    7:47 The Voice That Said Pain Is Coming
    10:00 The First Signs: Ryan's Name in the Lake
    11:51 Searching for Meaning: Spirituality and Survival
    17:00 The Daily Prescription for Grief
    23:00 The Ryan Batchelder Foundation and Little Hugs
    25:00 Energy, Intention, and What Changes Outcomes
    28:20 Sending Love to Every Situation
    35:38 Don't Miss the Magic: About the Book
    37:30 How a Medium Told Meg She Was Writing a Book
    43:30 What's Next: Speaking and a Book for Young People
    45:50 Celebrate Your Life Conference and Lisa Williams
    56:08 The Pink Tutu Meditation and Tina's Daughter Mia
    58:13 How You Win the Game

    #interviewpodcast #tragedy #tragicloss #lifelessons #grief #losingachid #movingforward #boatingaccident
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    1 hr
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