LINKS: https://www.elainedamschen.com
Facebook: Elaine Damschen - Author
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elaine.damschenauthor/
LinkedIn: Elaine Damschen

In this episode of Stories Across the Table, Bridget Cook-Burch and Steve Romano welcome Elaine Damschen, author of Made in Vietnam: My Epic American Journey, a businesswoman, speaker, and daughter of a story she didn’t fully understand until adulthood.

Elaine was conceived in Vietnam during the War, born in the United States, and raised in the mountains of North Idaho by a mother whose pain she couldn’t yet name. It wasn’t until a trip back to Vietnam at thirty-six that her parents finally shared the truth: her mother had survived being trafficked as a teenager, and the journey that brought Elaine to America as a citizen was nothing short of a miracle.

That revelation cracked Elaine’s heart wide open. Instead of resentment, she found compassion, and instead of distance, she found a deeper love for the mother she’d misunderstood for so long. That same resilience carried into her marriage, where she and her husband built a small electrical apprenticeship into Mainstream Electric Heating, Cooling and Plumbing, a company they grew for over twenty years and eventually sold.

Now retired, Elaine is far from finished. Between speaking engagements, a children’s book in progress, and a new swimwear line, she continues to live in the gratitude she discovered standing outside a hotel in Vietnam decades ago.

Pull up a chair for a story of inherited pain transformed into understanding, and proof that the most unexpected beginnings can still lead to a beautiful, vibrant and abundant life.


Bio:
Elaine Damschen is a #1 international best selling author, speaker, and mastermind host who believes in "Love in Action." She is a passionate advocate for women entrepreneurs and leaders, as well as the skilled trades.

Elaine was named "Woman of the Year" and "Top Entrepreneur of the Year" for co-founding Mainstream Home Services in 2000, a company named in the Inc 5000 list three times. Elaine has since sold her company. She has been married for over thirty years to her husband Todd and enjoys spending time with her children, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren.

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LINKS: www.Genshai.com

AUTHOR: The Genshai Effect

In this episode of Stories Across the Table, Bridget Cook-Burch and Steve Romano welcome Lance Schiffman, CEO of Genshai and a man who has spent decades turning his own lowest moments into a mission of radical kindness. Genshai is more than a nonprofit. It’s a calling, built around one unforgettable idea: never treat anyone in a manner that makes them feel small, including yourself.

Lance traces that calling back to his teenage years, when he had to grow up fast and move out at seventeen, and to a defining moment at eighteen when a skeptical Utah governor looked him in the eyes, believed in him, and changed the course of his life. Decades later, struggling again and pedaling through his pain on a bicycle, Lance received the word Genshai from a mentor, and something in him shifted for good.

What follows is the story of how one word became a movement. Lance now travels the world sharing silver Genshai coins, engraved with the word’s ancient meaning, as a way to help people honor the mentors who once believed in them, and to remind themselves that they are never too small to matter. Bridget shares her own connection to the word through author Rebecca Musser, whose courage in the face of cruelty became a testament to its power.

This conversation moves through vulnerability, gratitude, fatherhood, friendship, and the quiet bravery it takes to tell someone, while they’re still alive, exactly what they meant to you.

Pull up a chair for a story about turning smallness into strength, and discovering that every person you meet, including yourself, is the gift.

BIO:

Lance’s endeavors read like a roll call: philanthropist, entrepreneur, adventurer, investor, author, speaker, consultant, coach, humanitarian, advisor, and closest to his heart a father to three beautiful girls, grandchildren and a young son.

He has served as the angel investor to companies grown to multiple billions, created wealth in real estate, healthcare, repaired his body after intense cycling incidents, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Elbrus among many peaks, authored books, serves on various boards.

• YouTube: @StoriesAcrossTheTable https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHPeekMqKYjBAwO28gLSvRA
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• Steve’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steveramona/’
• Bridget’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbridgetcookburch/
• Steve’s X/Twitter: https://x.com/oppbroker
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• Steve’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bizopportunitynow/
• Bridget’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bridgetcookburch/
• Substack: https://p...

In this episode of Stories Across the Table, Bridget Cook-Burch and Steve Ramona welcome Gary and Leesa Price, a power couple whose lives together have been shaped by loss, survival, and an unwavering belief that tragedy can be transformed into something that lifts the entire world.

Gary's story begins at six years old, when he witnessed the murder-suicide of his mother and stepfather in Germany, then spent seven years enduring abuse after being moved to rural Idaho. What pulled him through was art. His first grade teacher, Mrs. Anderson, held up his drawings in front of the class again and again, giving a shattered little boy an identity and a reason to keep going. Decades later, Gary became an internationally acclaimed sculptor, and Stephen R. Covey commissioned him to give visual form to Victor Frankl's lifelong dream: a Statue of Responsibility to stand 305 feet tall on the West Coast as a counterpart to the Statue of Liberty.

Leesa's story begins from the opposite end of the pendulum. Raised with deep confidence by a father who always told her she could do it, she needed every ounce of that belief at twenty-six, when she was widowed with four children, the youngest only six months old. That voice carried her through, and eventually into a life of advocating for women and helping others find their footing in impossible circumstances.

Together, Gary and Leesa also share the story behind their book, Divine Turbulence, co-authored with Bridget Cook-Burch, and why every dollar of its proceeds goes toward making the Statue of Responsibility a reality.

Pull up a chair for a story about two hands reaching toward each other, and what becomes possible when someone simply chooses to believe in you.

• YouTube: @StoriesAcrossTheTable https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHPeekMqKYjBAwO28gLSvRA
• Bridget’s Free Community - Inspired Writers Clubhouse for Writers and Authors: https://www.inspiredwritersclubhouse.com
• Bridget’s Free Newsletter: https://www.yourinspiredstory.com/newsletter
• Steve’s Free Community: https://www.skool.com/steve-ramona-community-9836
• Steve’s Free Newsletter: https://doing-business-with-a-servants-heart.kit.com/steveramona
• Steve’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steveramona/’
• Bridget’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbridgetcookburch/
• Steve’s X/Twitter: https://x.com/oppbroker
• Bridget’s X/Twitter: @inspiritwriter
• Steve’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bizopportunitynow/
• Bridget’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bridgetcookburch/
• Substack: https://p...