The Chair

Anil Sankaramanchi

Actor, producer, storyteller

Anil was born in India, raised in America, and grew up speaking Sanskrit at home. That became his work: he makes international cinema here in Texas and teaches ancient philosophy to teenagers by starting where they already are, explaining one of India's oldest systems of thought through binary code. His argument is that every culture is a wrapper around the same chocolate, and that almost everything we fight about is the wrapper.

In The Chair · August 10, 2026

Madison Zeigler

Photographer of forgotten places

She left home at eighteen, married young, and got herself out of an abusive marriage within months of arriving in Texas. At twenty-three she is finishing a public policy degree online, working in veterinary care, and photographing abandoned and forgotten buildings. Five days after she sat in The Chair she flew to Maine, a plan she had carried since she was a teenager and the first thing she says she has ever done purely for herself.

In The Chair · August 10, 2026

Cherie Meeks

Artist and therapy dog handler

Her father and grandfather told her she was going to be a pharmacist. Three years into premed she told her father she could not spend her life counting pills in the back of a grocery store, and then spent forty-odd years doing everything else: commercial real estate, a health food store, hospital consulting, sales training. About a year ago, standing in front of a room of artists, she said the words I am an artist out loud for the first time. She calls it living in dog years, and she still works a room alongside an eleven pound terrier named Emma.

In The Chair · August 10, 2026

Maria Theis

Home loans processor, Flower Mound Toastmasters

She came to the United States from Venezuela chasing the American Dream, and more than a decade in finance has taught her that every loan has a story behind it. A proud mom and a Toastmasters member in Flower Mound, she believes that investing in yourself is the greatest investment you will ever make.

In The Chair · August 3, 2026

Michelle Joy Brown

Abstract artist and writer, The Resilient Canvas

She spent her career as a psychotherapist helping other people rebuild. Then a stroke meant rebuilding her own life. She paints abstracts now, and writes about the grit and the beauty of starting over and refusing to stop creating.

In The Chair · August 3, 2026

Dave Woodard

Tattoo artist, Prairie Rose Tattoo

Twenty-two years putting other people's stories permanently on their skin. A hardcore punk kid from Tampa who turned a tattoo machine into a passport, working in Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands and on cruise ships full of punk bands.

In The Chair · July 27, 2026

Tyler Donovan

Founder, Real Plastic Heroes

He had West Point all but guaranteed until a ninety second phone call ended it. Decades later he built a company that makes realistic figures of real post-9/11 veterans, each one with a QR code leading to that veteran telling his own story.

In The Chair · July 27, 2026

Isabel Espinosa

Funeral director and embalmer, now a flight attendant

Twenty years as both a funeral director and an embalmer, sitting with families on the worst day of their lives. Fifteen months ago she walked away, and everyone who loves her started telling her the same thing: you have never been so present.

In The Chair · July 27, 2026

Kelly Kidd

Historian, teacher, reenactor

Kelly is a lifelong historian and former history teacher who spent years bringing the 1800s to life through living-history reenactment. Give him a subject and the joy leaks right out of him. He makes the past feel like something you could walk straight into.

In The Chair · July 20, 2026

Susan Elbedeiny

Co-owner, Guitars & Growlers

Susan spent twenty-seven years at Chili's, rising from a college server to vice president, and built a women's leadership mentoring program that still runs today. She co-owns Guitars & Growlers, the neighborhood gathering place she and her best friend created because their community needed somewhere to be. She leads by rolling up her sleeves and doing the work herself.

In The Chair · July 20, 2026

Photo · Benjamin Mata

Kay Thibodeaux

Chocolatier and storyteller

Kay never planned to own a business. After decades of raising a family, running mobile clinics, and following the work wherever it led, she trained as a chocolatier and built a shop of her own. She will tell you a single bonbon takes four days to make, and that she is really a storyteller who happens to work in chocolate.

In The Chair · July 20, 2026

Photo · Benjamin Mata

Christina Hughes

Massage therapist, educator, mother of six

Christina was one of the most sought-after massage therapists in Dallas-Fort Worth, then built her own continuing-education company teaching other therapists their craft. She raised six daughters, one of whom is our own co-host, Jenna. Her whole life makes one quiet argument: you never start over, you only build forward.

In The Chair · July 13, 2026

Brooke Hunt

Realtor, industry leader, reader of people

Brooke has spent forty years in real estate and can read a room better than almost anyone alive. She led a hundred thousand Texas Realtors through the 2009 crash and is one of only two people in the country to receive her industry's highest honor. She and her husband, Mike, have built a life and a business together since 1988.

In The Chair · July 13, 2026

Carla Kidd

Actor, producer, retired therapist

Carla grew up wanting to be both an actor and a therapist. She chose therapy, spent more than thirty years helping people heal, and then reclaimed acting right at retirement. Today she is a working actor and producer, living proof that the dream you set down is not the dream you lost.

In The Chair · July 13, 2026

Photo · Travis Guba