Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 8/26/26 – There are people who talk about resilience because it sounds good, and then there are people who have spent enough time navigating life’s unexpected turns to understand what resilience really costs.
Audley Stephenson belongs in the second category.
The Toronto-based author, speaker, podcaster, and creator of the globally ranked Audacious Living Podcast has spent years talking with leaders, entrepreneurs, changemakers, and ordinary people whose lives have been anything but ordinary. With more than 700 episodes of his podcast behind him, Stephenson has built his work around courage, purposeful living, and what he calls “audacity”—the willingness to move forward even when fear, uncertainty, or adversity says otherwise.
His message is especially timely because it isn’t about pretending life will always be easy.
It is about understanding that difficult seasons do not last forever.
“Take that first step,” Stephenson said during an interview with The Hollywood Times. “Yes, you’re afraid. Yes, you’re not sure. Yes, there’s uncertainty, but that doesn’t mean that you still can’t move forward.”
That philosophy is at the heart of Stephenson’s upcoming book, Living Your Best Audacious Life Ever: How Unleashing Your Inner Greatness Can Change the World, scheduled for release Dec. 1, 2026.
But his belief in audacity didn’t begin with a book.
It began with a life.
Learning Audacity Before He Had a Name for It
Stephenson’s parents emigrated from Jamaica to Canada in the 1970s. Their marriage eventually ended, and Stephenson was raised primarily by his mother. He said he last saw his father when he was about six months old, and grew up without photographs, memories or even knowledge of where his father was.
Yet Stephenson doesn’t describe his childhood as one devoid of love.
“We weren’t rich. It was nothing like that,” he recalled. “But I got love, and I got all the things that I needed to help me grow and develop.”
Years later, when Stephenson was in his early 20s, a phone call changed everything.
An organization that had a service designed to help reconnect lost family members was on the line, and Stephenson learned that one of his biological parents was looking for him.
His first thought was that his mother was somehow looking for him. Then he realized the truth.
It was his father.
Stephenson still remembers making the call.
His father answered, and before Stephenson could say much, the older man recognized him.
“Junior, is that you?”
It was the beginning of a relationship Stephenson never expected to have.
His father had no way of knowing how his son would respond after decades apart. Stephenson could have been angry. He could have been resentful. He could have refused the relationship altogether.
Instead, they built one.
His father was ill at the time and died three and a half years later, but Stephenson remains grateful for the time they had.
For him, that story represents audacity in its purest form.
“My father had no idea how I’d receive him,” Stephenson said. “If I was resentful, if I’d be bitter or angry. He had no idea, but he reached out anyway.”
That willingness to reach out, he believes, is something many people can learn from.
“How many times in life do we say, ‘Ah, you know what? I’m not going to bother. Too much water under the bridge. I’m not going to reach out. I’ll just leave it alone,’” he said.
His father didn’t leave it alone.
He took the chance.
And that decision gave them three and a half years together that neither would otherwise have had.
From a Failed Beginning to a Career He Never Planned
Stephenson initially dreamed of becoming a sports broadcaster.
He loved basketball, and saw what he thought was a perfect opportunity when he interned at The Score, a 24-hour sports television channel, in Toronto.
His plan seemed simple: impress everyone, get hired, and launch his broadcasting career.
It didn’t happen that way.
Instead, he walked away from the internship feeling as though he had failed.
But what looked like failure at the time turned into something else.
Through a connection he made during that experience, Stephenson became involved in podcasting at a time when the medium was still relatively new. In 2008, he and fellow basketball enthusiast Dave Mendonca launched The NBA Breakdown, a podcast devoted to the NBA.
The venture eventually led to credentials with the Toronto Raptors, giving Stephenson the opportunity to interview players in locker rooms, including some of the biggest names in basketball.
Then came another unexpected turn.
When the NBA entered a lockout in 2011, Stephenson had to pivot again. A new Canadian basketball league was forming, and he began working with the organization.
He started as a volunteer.
Five years later, its board of directors appointed him Commissioner.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” Stephenson remembers thinking when he received the call.
But he took the job anyway.
That willingness to move before having every answer has become a defining theme of his life.
When the World Stopped
Then came the pandemic.
Stephenson was Commissioner of a basketball league when COVID-19 brought mass gatherings, and professional sports, to a halt. The timing was particularly brutal because the league was entering the playoffs.
Suddenly, the career he had built around basketball disappeared.
Stephenson remembers being home, unable to understand why he felt so miserable.
“I was in bed. I don’t want to get out. I’m feeling lethargic. I’m miserable,” he recalled.
Then, during a conversation, he said something that helped him understand what was happening.
“Ever since I lost basketball.”
That was the realization.
He had lost something that had given his life meaning and purpose.
But instead of remaining there, Stephenson returned to something he already knew.
Podcasting.
This time, however, he didn’t want to talk about basketball.
He wanted to talk about something bigger.
Looking back across his life, Stephenson recognized a common thread running through the milestones, successes, and unexpected opportunities.
Audacity.
And in December 2020, the Audacious Living Podcast was born.
Since then, he has recorded more than 700 episodes, speaking with people from remarkably different backgrounds, even some who had been in concentration camps, and collecting the lessons their experiences have taught him.
“I refer to myself as the encourager of audacity,” he said. “That’s the difference-maker, and that’s all I want for people.”
The Conversation That Changed the Meaning of Adversity
Among all those conversations, one story continues to stand out.
Stephenson interviewed a man who had experienced severe addiction, attempted suicide, and endured tremendous personal hardship.
Their conversation turned toward one of Stephenson’s central ideas: outlasting adversity.
Stephenson’s framework for an audacious life is built around the acronym BOLD:
B — Better than yesterday.
O — Outlasting adversity.
L — Live your truth.
D — Disrupt the norm.
During the interview, the man suddenly stopped.
“Hold on a second,” he told Stephenson.
He left the room and returned with his young son.
The boy was about eight or nine years old.
The father explained that he and Stephenson had been talking about adversity.
Then he told his son something Stephenson would never forget:
If he hadn’t learned to outlast adversity, his son wouldn’t be there.
For Stephenson, the moment was profoundly emotional. “It was very real. It was very raw,” he said. “It wasn’t scripted. It just happened the way it did.”
And it reinforced why he continues doing this work.
“It does matter. It is important,” Stephenson said. “And people do need to be encouraged.”
You Have Already Survived Every Problem You’ve Faced
Perhaps Stephenson’s most powerful message is also one of his simplest: People tend to forget how much they have already survived.
He illustrated that idea through one of his own experiences–Stephenson didn’t learn to ride a bicycle until he was 40 years old.
He fell repeatedly.
But he kept getting back on.
Eventually, he learned.
The experience gave him another lesson when he later decided to bicycle from Toronto to Niagara Falls.
Three-quarters of the way through the trip, he encountered a hill that seemed impossible.
His immediate thought was I can’t do it.
Then he stopped himself.
“How many hills did you go through before you got to this one?” he asked himself.
That question changed his perspective.
The hill wasn’t the first challenge he’d encountered.
It was simply the challenge he was facing at that moment.
And life, Stephenson argues, works the same way.
“We always have gotten through problems,” he said. “But what happens is we sort of forget about that.”
That forgetfulness can make the next obstacle seem bigger than it really is.
Stephenson encourages people to remember their victories, even the small ones.
“Nothing is too small. Nothing is too minimal,” he said.
Those accomplishments become evidence that the next challenge can be faced, too.
Then he offered a message that is difficult to argue with:
“When it comes to problems, I know you’re undefeated,” he told me during our conversation. “You’ve overcome every problem that you ever faced. I know that because you’re here right now talking to me.”
It is a remarkably simple definition of resilience.
If you are still here, you have already outlasted everything that tried to stop you before.
Courage Comes Before Confidence
Stephenson also challenges the common idea that people need to feel confident before taking a risk.
He believes it is often the opposite.
“You’ve got to have the courage first,” he said. “Then you’ll develop the confidence.”
Confidence, in other words, can be the result of action rather than the prerequisite for it.
That is one of the central ideas behind Living Your Best Audacious Life Ever, which Stephenson describes as an extension of the hundreds of conversations he has had through his podcast.
Every guest, he says, leaves behind a lesson.
“Every time a guest leaves, they leave a little piece of themselves,” he explained.
Those pieces became part of the book; alongside Stephenson’s own experiences and the frameworks he has developed over the years.
The book’s central question is deceptively simple: What if an extraordinary life isn’t created by a handful of giant, fearless decisions, but by ordinary people making small, intentional choices to be courageous every day?
For Stephenson, audacity doesn’t necessarily mean doing something spectacular.
Sometimes it means making the phone call.
Sometimes it means starting over.
Sometimes it means trying something you’ve never done before.
Sometimes it simply means getting back on the bicycle.
Turning on the Light
Stephenson has another metaphor for discovering the courage that already exists within us.
Imagine a dark living room.
The furniture is there. The couch is there. The television is there. The lamp is there.
You simply can’t see any of it.
Then someone turns on the light.
“The light didn’t put them there; they always were there,” Stephenson said. “We just had to turn on the light.”
He believes audacity works the same way.
His own “light switch” turned on when he began looking backward and recognizing that courage had been present throughout his life—even before he had a word for it.
Now he wants other people to turn on theirs.
“My light switch got turned on,” he said. “I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, more people. We’ve got to turn on their light switches.’”
That is ultimately what Stephenson hopes his podcast, his speaking and his new book will accomplish.
Not convincing people to become someone else.
Helping them recognize what is already inside them.
A More Audacious Life
Stephenson’s definition of greatness isn’t measured by wealth, fame or material success.
It is measured by growth.
He also believes that when one person takes that first courageous step, it can give someone else permission to take theirs.
“If I try something,” he explained, “someone else watched me and goes, ‘Oh wow, Bobby started a podcast. Maybe I can too.’”
That is how change spreads.
One person acts.
Another person sees it.
Another person becomes brave enough to try.
And suddenly, an individual act of courage has become something larger.
That is what Stephenson means when he says unleashing one’s inner greatness can change the world.
“You’re inspiring people through your actions,” he said.
The message is not that fear disappears.
It is that fear doesn’t have to make the decision.
For anyone standing in front of an uncertain future, facing a difficult season, or wondering whether the circumstances of today will ever change, Stephenson’s answer is refreshingly direct:
Keep going.
Remember the hills you’ve already climbed.
Celebrate the victories you’ve been too busy to notice.
Take the first step even if you cannot see the entire staircase.
And, above all, outlast the adversity.
Because the other side of it may contain something so audaciously wonderful that you cannot even imagine it yet.
About Audley Stephenson
Audley Stephenson is the creator and host of The Audacious Living Podcast, a globally ranked personal-growth podcast with more than 700 episodes. His professional background includes public service, sports management, communications and podcasting. His new book, Living Your Best Audacious Life Ever: How Unleashing Your Inner Greatness Can Change the World, is scheduled for release Dec. 1, 2026.
Readers can learn more about Stephenson, his podcast and his work at bestaudaciouslife.com.
