John Edmonds Kozma's Unimpressed Podcast

James Talley is an Oklahoma born folk-country-blues singer/songwriter, whose career now spans over forty years. His name has been mentioned alongside Woody Guthrie, Merle Haggard and Bob Dylan, and praised for the quality of his songwriting and his wise, expressive voice. Noted author and music critic, Peter Guralnick has said of James’ work, “There are few singer-songwriters who could produce a collection of such magnitude coupled at the same time with such lightness, beauty, and all-out social conscience. Woody Guthrie never wrote a more direct or affecting song than “Richland, Washington”; Bruce Springsteen never wrote a more powerful one than “Tryin’ Like the Devil.”Upon moving to Nashville, James discovered that the commercial music business was not attuned to the kind of honesty he wrote about in his songs, so he went to New York to meet the late John Hammond, who became his first mentor. Hammond championed the unique vision in his writing in the early 1970s as he had the careers of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Bruce Springsteen.Hammond, however, could not convince Columbia in New York to sign James’ more country-flavored sound, so he sent him to his friend Jerry Wexler, whose Atlantic Records was starting a new Country division in Nashville at the time. Wexler signed James to his first recording contract at Atlantic Records in 1972 along with Doug Sahm and Willie Nelson. Atlantic’s Nashville operation, however, did not do well at the time and Atlantic closed its Nashville office. James then moved to Capitol Records where he released four now legendary albums during the mid-1970s: Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love (1975); Tryin’ Like The Devil (1976); Blackjack Choir (1977) and Ain’t It Somthin’ (1977). ROLLING STONE, and other music publications, have declared these albums American classics.James performed twice at The White House for President Jimmy Carter, and at the Smithsonian Institution, and in other concert venues around the United States and in Europe. B.B. King played guitar on James third album, Blackjack Choir, in 1976, marking the first time the legendary bluesman had ever recorded in Nashville. Johnny Cash, Johnny Paycheck, Alan Jackson, Hazel Dickens, the late Gene Clark, and most recently Moby, among others, have recorded his songs.Music author David McGee has called James Talley’s work startlingly original. Legendary music producer, Jerry Wexler, who remained friends with James until his death, said, “You remain for me one of America’s greatest songwriters.” CMT columnist, Chet Flippo, called him “one of the best singer-songwriters to ever come out of Nashville.”James is a life member of Nashville Local 257, American Federation of Musicians, and is a board member of the Nashville American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. He and Janice spend their time now between their home near Santa Fe, NM and Nashville.

Kristen Butler is an entrepreneur, leader, and visionary in personal development with a huge heart and captivating authenticity. Her mission is to uplift the planet! She is the founder and CEO of Power of Positivity. Started in 2009, today, her brands have a collective audience of over 50 million and an amazingly talented team behind the scenes. Her success can be attributed to her passion and tenacity to help others, her experience and knowledge in social media since 1998, her love for writing, and her business and journalism skills. She passionately started Power of Positivity after completely transforming her life from rock bottom using the power of positive thinking. She was so astonished by the results of her research and mindset implementation that she felt her life’s purpose is to help others improve their lives. Kristen not only contributes her transformation to a positive mindset but her relationship with God and an active, plant-based lifestyle.

Dr. Ian Smith is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling books, SHRED: THE REVOLUTIONARY DIET, and SUPER SHRED: The Big Results Diet, and BLAST THE SUGAR OUT. Dr. Smith’s highly anticipated newest book, The Clean 20, became an instant New York Times best seller, helping hundreds of thousands of people reduce bad sugars from their diet, lose weight, lower blood sugar levels, and cut the cravings.Dr. Smith was appointed by President Obama to a second term on the prestigious President’s Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition. He is currently the medical contributor and co-host of the nationally syndicated television show The Rachael Ray Show.He is a former co-host of the Emmy award winning syndicated daytime talk show, The Doctors. He also served as the medical/diet expert for six seasons on VH1’s highly-rated Celebrity Fit Club, and is the creator and founder of the national health initiatives The 50 Million Pound Challenge and The Makeover Mile. Dr. Smith is the former medical correspondent for NBC News network and for NewsChannel 4 in New York, where he filed reports for NBC Nightly News and The Today Show as well as WNBC’s various news broadcasts. He has appeared extensively on various broadcasts including The Oprah Winfrey Show, The View, Dr. Oz, Steve Harvey Show, The Talk, Larry King Live, Anderson Cooper 360, CNN, MSNBC and many more. He has written for various publications including Time, Newsweek, Men’s Fitness, and the New York Daily News, and has been featured in several other publications including, People, Redbook, Details Magazine, Essence, Ebony, University of Chicago Medicine on the Midway, Cosmopolitan, and Black Enterprise.A highly-sought after speaker, Dr. Smith’s work has been honored by several organizations, including the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for his coverage on the momentous events beginning on Sept. 11, 2001. He is also very active in charitable causes. Dr. Smith has also served on the boards of the American Council on Exercise, the New York Mission Society, the Prevent Cancer Foundation, The New York Council for the Humanities, and The Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity.Dr. Smith graduated from Harvard College with an AB and received a master’s in science education from Teachers College of Columbia University. He attended Dartmouth Medical School and completed the last two years of his medical education and graduated from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

John Byron Hanby IV is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Iternal Technologies. Iternal Technologies is accelerating competitive advantage by enabling organizations to deliver an outstanding personalized customer experience, access new customer opportunities and accelerate growth while reducing costs.“Dell generated over $650 Million in new opportunities, 10X the number of shots on goal, no incremental cost increase, proposal creation timelines of 3-6 weeks turned into 2 days of work, with my team of just 4 Dell Employees using Iternal.” - Dayne Turbitt Fmr. SVP & GM • Dell Technologies, UKIternal is working with Dell, NVIDIA, AMD and many other global technology brands to accelerate sales, marketing, and business development team's ability to produce key materials by a factor of 16x+, in any language, with the click of a single button, through AI and automation. This transformation will give sellers substantially more time to dedicate to selling instead of hours of manual copy-paste roll-your-own document creation which doesn’t help drive revenue.Hanby is a passionate innovator and creator of better ways to connect people, knowledge, ideas, and experiences. He is the Founder of Iternal Technologies and Creator of Technology as an Employee. Throughout his film career he has won over 65 content creation awards from internationally acclaimed institutions including The Academy for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and SXSW Film Festival. Hanby graduated from The University of Texas at Austin in 3 years as the top graduate of the film department at the Moody College of Communication.

Take an exciting journey with professional stuntwoman, Diane Peterson, into the amazing world of action stunts, adventure, joy, heartbreak, injury, death, and her uncanny desire to overcome her fears and follow her dreams.Diane has been a professional stuntwoman for over forty years. She has worked on over two hundred movies and television shows including Titanic, Laundromat, Green Hornet, Batman Forever, Marked for Death, Out for Justice, Robocop II, Airplane, and many, many others. Television shows she has worked on include Walker, Texas Ranger, Fall Guy, Mac- Gyver, Magnum P.I., and many others.Diane has film credits as double for: Sharon Stone, Jessica Lange, Faye Dunaway, Diane Keaton, Heather Locklear, Heather Thomas, Farrah Fawcett, Michele Pfeiffer, Kate Capshaw, and hundreds of other actresses.Diane encourages all to overcome your fears and follow your dreams!

"We Will Always Grow If We Let The Light Guide Us." I have been fascinated with death, the deceased, and the afterlife for as long as I can recall. There I was, just a young boy, seeing spirits and not knowing what to make of it! Despite my panic and fear, I thought these experiences were “normal.” I mean, didn’t every kid at school see them too? Sadly, no, others were not experiencing what I did. Even more frustrating was that I couldn’t find the right words to explain the feeling and sensation inside me when it happened. My mom would tell me I had watched too many scary movies. After a while, I started to accept her well-intentioned, rational explanations, and these experiences eventually faded away.Then my world ended at the age of 14 when I suffered what I thought at the time was a horrible tragedy. Little did I know it would lead me on my life’s journey. My mom and I lived on opposite coasts when she suddenly fell ill, and I raced to her with barely enough time before she passed away. Upon her death, I was at a loss for words. How could she be gone? Two days later, I woke in the middle of the night to see my mom standing before my bed in spirit. I can still remember opening my eyes and seeing the room illuminated with a beautiful light. I thought I was dreaming at first but soon realized this was no dream. She spoke to me and told me she was all better and not to worry about her anymore. Over the next three years, my fascination with her death and this experience compelled me to research it further and investigate “the other side.”I remember an experience hanging out with some friends and randomly walking into a psychic’s reading room, part of a strip mall. Before I could open my mouth, the psychic began to tell me that I was highly gifted but not ready to accept this truth about myself just yet. It would be a few years before I truly understood what she meant. Soon after I turned 18, and after feeling more and more drawn for answers, I found myself alone, attending a lecture on mediumship, or at least I thought this was a lecture. I soon realized that it was a class on developing your psychic skills and that this particular night was a special class on mediumship. How convenient! The moment I walked in, the two teachers greeted me, and both marveled at how my energy filled the room.This lovely middle-aged woman asked me a question, and one of the teachers instructed me to close my eyes and then say what I was seeing, feeling, hearing, etc. I did precisely that, but it didn’t feel special; it was just what she told me to do. When I opened my eyes, though, the nice woman was shocked, speechless, and couldn’t believe all the validations I had just shared with her.They referred to my suddenly validated gift as "the golden link" to the other side, and I made it my mission to hone my skills by practicing with friends. Within one month of doing professional readings, I finally accepted this was a part of who I am. This gift was my true calling, and I was grateful for the opportunity to help others.