Brandon Chapman is a former YTA 300-certified yoga instructor, sociology student, and lifelong observer of the complicated ways identity, culture, trauma, relationships, and expectations shape the way people move through the world.

Raised in a single-parent home alongside his sister, Brandon began questioning traditional expectations and cultural conditioning long before he had the language to explain exactly what he was questioning. He became fascinated by why people become who they become, why society places certain expectations on men and women, and what happens when someone begins pushing against the identity they have been handed.

That curiosity, and his tendency to feel his way against the current rather than simply follow it, eventually became part of the foundation for Talking Stick Utah.

Over the years, Brandon has worked with men and women both incarcerated and in the broader community, teaching yoga, meditation, fitness, movement, and lifestyle practices. His experiences have brought him into conversations surrounding prison reform, addiction, interpersonal and domestic violence, trauma, gender dynamics, identity, relationships, and the growing challenges facing boys and men in America.

He is particularly interested in the uncomfortable space where personal responsibility and compassion meet.

Brandon believes meaningful change requires the willingness to examine not only what has happened to us, but also how our choices affect the people around us. It requires difficult conversations, curiosity about experiences different from our own, accountability for the harm we cause, and enough humility to recognize that none of us has everything figured out.

As a self-described, “sheep in wolf’s clothing,” Brandon reflects both his personality and his approach to the world. Beneath the willingness to challenge expectations, question systems, and walk directly into conversations many people would rather avoid is a deep belief in connection, community, and the possibility that people can change.

Currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in sociology at SLCC, Brandon continues exploring how communities shape individuals and how individuals can, in turn, reshape their communities.

His vision for Talking Stick Utah grew from the belief that men need places where they can gather without pretending to have all the answers. Places where conversations can be honest, accountability and compassion can exist at the same table, and men can question what they have been taught while learning better ways to show up for themselves and others.

Brandon believes the challenges facing men cannot be separated from the lives of the women, children, families, and communities around them. When men develop stronger communication skills, greater self-awareness, healthier relationships, and a deeper sense of responsibility, the impact extends far beyond the individual.

Talking Stick Utah is his attempt to create a place where that work can begin.

Despite his contemplative nature, Brandon has also found plenty of time to break bones, torment his sister, age his mother exponentially, reinvent himself more than once, and try on enough identities to confirm that growing up during the '80s and '90s was, in fact, an experience.

He also remains mildly disappointed that he has yet to become a world-class freestyle rap battler, transform into an animalized feudal-era samurai, or discover the perfect shade of pistachio nail polish. But there's still time...

Talking Stick Utah is Brandon’s invitation to men willing to show up, ask difficult questions, take responsibility for their lives, turn over a new leaf, and explore better ways of relating to themselves and the people around them.

It is a place for conversation, curiosity, service, accountability, growth, and belonging. It's a place built on the belief that becoming better is not a destination, but something we practice together.

Leslie Borzea is a builder, entrepreneur, chronic idea-haver, and firm believer that almost anything worth creating starts as a seed.

Sometimes that seed is a business idea. Sometimes it is an opportunity, a relationship, a conversation, or simply believing in someone before they are quite ready to believe in themselves. And sometimes it is an actual seed, because Leslie has never met a plant she didn't want to propagate, move to a different window, repot unnecessarily, or check for new growth approximately seventeen times a day.

She loves creating things and watching them grow.

That philosophy is at the heart of Find Your Voice, an organization Leslie is creating to help women rediscover their identity, independence, confidence, and sense of possibility after losing pieces of themselves somewhere along the way.

The name is deeply personal.

Leslie knows firsthand that having a voice and knowing how to use it are not always the same thing. Sometimes you spend so much time becoming who other people need you to be that you eventually realize you aren't entirely sure who you are anymore.

Find Your Voice grew from Leslie's belief that every woman deserves the opportunity to figure that out.

Not to be handed a new identity. Not to be told who she should become. But to have the encouragement, community, practical opportunities, and room to discover it for herself.

And because Leslie has never been particularly interested in doing anything the simple way, her vision extends far beyond encouragement.

She is working toward creating businesses, employment opportunities, mentorship, community, and practical pathways to independence. She hopes to help women start businesses of their own and build programs that can eventually be placed into the hands of women who are ready to carry them forward.

Her involvement with Talking Stick Utah grew from another fairly simple realization: healthier communities cannot be built by helping men over here, women over there, and pretending none of us affects anyone else.

Because, we do.

Men and women affect one another. Parents shape children. Relationships influence families. Families shape communities. And whether we like it or not, we're all participating in the same slightly chaotic human experiment.

Talking Stick Utah and Find Your Voice approach the work from different directions, but Brandon and Leslie see tremendous potential in bringing those efforts together.

Men need places to question old expectations, take responsibility for their lives, develop healthier relationships, and become more connected to the people around them.

Women need places to rediscover their identities, recognize the value of their own voices, build independence, and create opportunities for themselves and others.

Brandon and Leslie believes that when both are given room to grow, something much bigger becomes possible: stronger individuals, healthier relationships, better families, and communities where people actually know and care about one another.

She is endlessly curious, frequently starting something new, and happiest in the moment when an idea stops being something she talks about and starts becoming something real.

She has a particular affection for the messy middle. Ya know, the place between who someone has been and who they are becoming. Probably because Leslie herself has spent a fair amount of time there.

She believes people are capable of far more than they sometimes recognize in themselves, and she would much rather help someone discover what they can build than tell them what their life should look like.

For Leslie, the work is about planting seeds without always needing to know exactly what they will become.

It is about opening doors, creating opportunities, helping people recognize possibilities they may not yet see in themselves, and trusting that something small, cared for consistently, can eventually grow beyond the person who planted it.

“Got the heart of a rebel, stay ahead of the devil, manifest all I need.”
— The Elovaters

And if history is any indication, Leslie will continue planting multiple seeds at once, checking impatiently to see if they've grown, starting three more projects while she waits, rearranging the entire garden halfway through, and being genuinely delighted when something unexpected takes root.

Because, as it turns out, she was never particularly interested in having a perfectly organized garden anyway.

She'd rather grow a forest.

Josh Penrod is a health expert, wellness consultant, emotional performance coach, single father, and living proof that a person’s worst chapter does not get final editorial approval over the rest of the story.

His work lives at the intersection of physical health, emotional awareness, human behavior, and the occasionally inconvenient reality that knowing what you should do and actually doing it are two entirely different skill sets.

Josh helps people close that gap.

Over more than a decade, he has trained in systems and disciplines including The Creator’s Framework, Level Up EQ, Anatomy Trains, Functional Patterns, NASM, CrossFit, and Advanced Myofascial Techniques. He has worked with executives, entrepreneurs, elite performers, teams, and organizations to strengthen leadership capacity, improve physical performance, develop resilience, and create success that can actually be sustained.

Which is the professional way of saying Josh spends a considerable amount of time helping highly capable people figure out why being successful in one part of life does not automatically mean the rest of it will cooperate.

His approach combines evidence-based practices, emotional performance techniques, physical health protocols, and something that cannot be earned through a certification program: lived experience.

Before working in corporate wellness and coaching high performers, Josh’s life included addiction, incarceration, and homelessness.

Those experiences are not a footnote hidden beneath his credentials.

They are part of the reason he does the work.

Josh understands transformation from both sides of the conversation. As someone who has studied human performance extensively and as someone who has had to rebuild his own life when growth was not an interesting concept discussed in a seminar, but a necessity.

That combination gives him an unusual ability to meet people where they are without becoming overly impressed by titles, intimidated by circumstances, or convinced that anyone is beyond the possibility of becoming something different.

Whether working with incarcerated men, women, and youth or Fortune 500 executives, Josh believes the fundamental work is surprisingly similar.

People need opportunities to tell themselves the truth.

They need the courage to recognize where their behaviors are out of alignment with the lives they say they want. They need environments where they can explore difficult questions, recognize opportunities for growth, and develop the physical and emotional capacity to do something about what they discover.

And sometimes they need someone willing to stand beside them while they do the uncomfortable work.

Josh is willing to be that person.

As a single father, his interest in human growth extends beyond boardrooms, gyms, coaching sessions, and programs. He is deeply interested in the environments we create for the people closest to us and in building homes, businesses, relationships, and communities where people have room to search deeply, explore expansively, and thrive endlessly.

His involvement with Talking Stick Utah reflects that belief.

Josh understands that men do not become healthier, stronger, or more connected simply because someone tells them they should.

Change requires practice.

It requires physical and emotional awareness, accountability, honest relationships, opportunities to serve, and the willingness to confront the parts of ourselves we would occasionally prefer to leave unsupervised.

Josh believes people should be met where they are without being encouraged to stay there.

He brings to Talking Stick Utah a deep understanding of human performance, respect for the complexity of personal change, and an ability to walk alongside people from dramatically different backgrounds without losing sight of what they have in common.

Because whether someone is leading a Fortune 500 company, rebuilding life after incarceration, raising a child, recovering from addiction, or simply trying to become a little more like the person they keep claiming they want to be, Josh believes there is always another level of growth available.

Unfortunately, achieving that growth may involve confronting your own behavior, exercising, developing emotional self-awareness, taking responsibility for your choices, and doing several other things significantly less enjoyable than buying another self-help book.

Josh seems comfortable with that.

He is not interested in helping people become perfect.

He is interested in helping them become honest enough to grow, strong enough to change, and resilient enough to keep going when growth gets uncomfortable.