Episode 11 returns from a quiet summer and opens with the question Rich carried out of it: what will his sons remember about this period?
He recaps the season first, the 3v3 video game sessions (where his kids carried him), an illness and the losses, and a job-seeking summer whose theme became "On the Back Burner". Then the real subject: running two communication protocols in one house. Full transparency for his 16-year-old, who asks about the insurance instead of the car. A filter for his 6-year-old, who only knows Daddy is home all the time but can't play. Rich names what the buffer protects and what it quietly costs, and the choice that is always available when the dreaded email lands: close it and go frag zombies, because the email doesn't expire and the afternoon does.

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This episode opens Phase 2 of Fear, Faith, and the Forest, called The Long Walk. It's for the people who didn't get out in the first 90 days, who've reached an equilibrium they know is conditional, who are still walking through the forest of long-term unemployment. Rich names what the job search actually feels like at this point, the zombie ritual of applying into the void, and what's worth doing about it. He talks about two summers compared, the household that's still alive even when the trip can't happen, the functional steadiness sitting on top of a possible cliff, and a quiet realization about what this period has been building all along. The verse is Hebrews 12:1.

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A reflection episode marking the close of Phase 1. More than a year into unemployment, Rich looks back at the things he said in the first eight episodes and asks what's held up under pressure, and what's changed. Eight Parts, eight lessons. He talks about gratitude for the contract work that's sustaining him, the interview he bombed and what it taught him about preparation, the difference between stumbling on the path and leaving it, and how the To-Do list has become the discipline that holds his entire household steady. He gets honest about the ups and downs, shares an update on a friend whose journey has been even harder than his own, and reflects on how the podcast itself has evolved along the way. The verse is James 1:2-4.

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